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GENERAL CUSTER IN HIS STUDY. 



THE BOY GENERAL 



STORY OF THE LIFE OF 

Major-General George A. Custer 



AS TOLD BY 



>r^ ELIZABETH bT CUSTER 

IN "TENTING ON THE PLAINS," "FOLLOWING THE GUIDON," 
AND "BOOTS'AND SADDLES" 



EDITED BY 

MARY E. BURT 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1901 

V . 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAR 29 1901 

Copyright entry 

vffa*. If, /<?&/ 

CLASsfl. XXc. N». 
COPY B. 



E^tL7 

\ 



Copyright, 1901, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



TROW DIRECTORY 
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
NEW YORK 



Zo 

SEVEN YOUNG SOLDIERS 

WHO STRUGGLE WITH SAVAGE LESSONS 
AND FIGHT BRAVELY 
THE BATTLES OF COMMON EVERY-DAY LIFE 

WARREN KENNETH 
GARDNER TOMMY 
PETER COOPER 
CHARLES and MERLE 



PREFACE 



"The Boy General" is a condensed sur- 
vey of the life of Major-General George Arm- 
strong Custer, as told by his wife, Elizabeth 
B. Custer, in her matchless books, " Tenting 
on the Plains," " Following the Guidon," and 
" Boots and Saddles." It summarizes General 
Custer's public services, from the reorganiza- 
tion of Texas after the Civil War and the sup- 
pression of the intended Mexican Invasion, to 
the pioneer work of himself and his brave sol- 
diers in opening up the Northwest. 

Sympathize as we may with the unfortunate 
Indian, we can but acknowledge that there is 
no longer any room on earth for uncivilized 
conditions to exist. Humanity is in the proc- 
ess of evolution toward a brotherhood that 
must be universal. " The Earth is the Lord's." 
It is not the Indian's. It is not the White 
Man's. It must open up for the good of all 
men, each individual to use it for his highest 
development. 



vi 



Preface 



In her descriptions of the joys and sorrows, 
the glory and the grief, the courage and the 
sacrifices of the daring troopers of the Plains, 
Mrs. Custer has well served the purposes of 
graver history, for her facts are indisputable 
and at first hand. She furnishes the original 
colors with which the future artist may paint, 
the action which the poet and novelist weave 
into song and romance. Her pages are crowd- 
ed with pictures of a type of life almost extinct. 
Washington Irving in his Indian stories drew 
on records of a dead past. Mrs. Custer has 
drawn on living records of an intense present. 

As good literature, " The Boy General" is a 
valuable accessory in teaching. It is an inval- 
uable accessory as well in teaching history 
and geography. But to the really professional 
teacher knowledge is nothing as compared 
with character. The greatest value of the 
book lies in the fact that its pages teem with 
examples of fortitude, self-sacrifice, temper- 
ance, self-control, tenderness, kindliness in 
dealing with difficult dispositions, a patriotism 
that cannot be bribed, resistance of tempta- 
tions to dishonorable wealth, devotion to one's 
country in spite of pestilence, cold, fatigue, 
and starvation. These are lessons in manliness 
and they mean more than dates and statistics. 



Preface 



vii 



The chapters from " Boots and Saddles," re- 
calling the most dangerous adventures of Gen- 
eral Custer's life, have been repeatedly used in 
Western schools, and it was the enthusiasm of 
Western school-children that first gave the im- ; 
pulse to editing this book. Since then I have 
read the book critically with a class of New 
York children, and to their comments I owe 
the clew to my choice of text. It is with re- 
gret that many thrilling scenes have been 
omitted. In no case has the meaning been al- 
tered, and the text has been cut down to the 
necessary proportions only as the author has 
approved. The closing chapter is edited from 
reliable sources, chiefly from the writings of 
Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles, and an 
article in the Century Magazine of January, 
1892, written by Captain Edward S. Godfrey, 
of the Seventh U. S. Cavalry, who was in the 
battle of the Little Big Horn. Information 
was also gathered from the letters and com- 
ments of Generals Sherman and Sheridan, Mc- 
Clellan and Fry, and Colonel Smith, of Briga- 
dier-General Alfred H. Terry's staff. Many 
thanks are due to Mrs. Annie Gibson Yates, 
widow of Captain George W. Yates (the hero 
who planned the capture of Rain-in-the-face), 
for collecting these data, and to General Miles 



viii 



Preface 



for revising them. This is a chapter long de- 
sired by all the young readers who are inter- 
ested in getting a clear account of the battle 
of the Little Big Horn. It is the only simple, 
reliable, and brief account of that battle that 
has been put in shape for children's reading. 

I send this little book out with pride and sat- 
isfaction, knowing that it is worthy of a long 
life, for neither writer nor editor with respect 
for humanity will put a hand to anything not 
worthy of being permanent. 

Mary E. Burt. 

The John A. Browning School, 
February, 1901. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. On Leaving the Army of the Potomac . 


PAGE 

3 


II. 


Political Temptations .... 


9 


III. 


Westward Ho !..... 


1 u 


IV. 


An Expedition Against the Indians 


65 


V. 


The Negro as a Soldier .... 


4° 


VI. 


The Home of the Buffalo 


53 


VII. 


The First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry 


6o 


VIII. 


Battle of the Washita .... 


75 


IX. 


The Boy General in the Northwest 


8i 


X. 


An April Blizzard .... 


87 


XI. 


On to Fort Lincoln .... 


98 


XII. 


Camping Among the Sioux . 


109 


XIII. 


Adventures During the March 


119 


XIV. 


The Yellowstone Expedition 


126 


XV. 


The Return to Fort Lincoln 


i34 



ix 



X 


Contents 




CHAPTER 




PAGE 


AVI. 


Life at Fort Lincoln .... 


141 


Y"\7TT 
A. V 11. 


Capture and Escape of Rain-in-the- 






Face ...... 


1 c;o 


XVIII. 


An Indian Council .... 


163 



XIX. 


Life on the Reservation 


167 


XX. 


T pqvp of Ahciprirp 

-LiCctvw ui in uijCiiLv; .... 


T *7 1 
177 


XXI. 


Our Life's Last Chapter 


188 


XXII. 


The Battle of the Little Big Horn 


I98 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



General Custer in His Study . . Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

General Custer and His Indian Scouts . . 80 



The Battle-field of Little Big Horn . . .160 



Comanche, Captain Keough's Horse . . * 192 



THE BOY GENERAL 



CHAPTER I 



ON LEAVING THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 

General Custer graduated at West Point 
just in time to take part in the battle of Bull 
Run. He served with his regiment — the Fifth 
Cavalry — for a time, but eventually was ap- 
pointed aide-de-camp to General McClellan. 
He came to his sister's home in my native 
town, Monroe, Michigan, on leave of absence, 
during the winter of 1863, and there I first met 
him. 

In the spring he returned to the army in 
Virginia, and was promoted that summer, at 
the age of twenty-three, from captain to brig- 
adier-general. During the following autumn 
he came to Monroe again to recover from a 
flesh-wound, which, though not serious, dis- 
abled him somewhat. At that time we became 
engaged. When his twenty days' leave of ab- 
sence had expired he went back to duty, and 
did not return until a few days before our 
marriage, in February, 1864. 

We had no sooner reached Washington on 



4 The Boy General 

our wedding-journey than telegrams came, fol- 
lowing one another in quick succession, asking 
him to give up the rest of his leave of absence, 
and hasten without an hour's delay to the front. 
I begged so hard not to be left behind that I 
finally "prevailed. The result was that I found 
myself in a few hours on the extreme wing 
of the Army of the Potomac, in an isolated 
Virginia farm-house, finishing my honeymoon 
alone. I had so besought him to allow me to 
come that I did not dare own to myself the 
desolation and fright I felt. In the prepara- 
tion for the hurried raid which my husband 
had been ordered to make he had sent to cav- 
alry head-quarters to provide for my safety, 
and troops were in reality near, although I 
could not see them. 

The General's old colored servant, Eliza, 
comforted me, and the Southern family in the 
house took pity upon my anxiety. It was a sud- 
den plunge into a life of vicissitude, and I hard- 
ly remember the time during the twelve years 
that followed when I was not in fear of some 
immediate peril, or in dread of some danger 
that threatened. After the raid was ended, 
we spent some delightful weeks together, and 
when the regular spring campaign began I re- 
turned to Washington, where I remained until 



Leaving the Army of the Potomac 5 

the surrender and the close of the war. After 
that we went to Texas for a year, my husband 
still acting as major-general in command of 
volunteers. 

He did not even see the last of that grand 
review of the 23d and 24th of May, 1865. On 
the first day he was permitted to doff his hat 
and bow low, as he proudly led that superb 
body of men, the Third Division of Cavalry, in 
front of the grand stand, where sat the " pow- 
ers that be." Along the line of the division, 
each soldier straightened himself in the saddle, 
and felt the proud blood fill his veins, as he 
realized that he was one of those who, in six 
months, had taken one hundred and eleven of 
the enemy's guns, sixty-five battle-flags, and 
upward of 10,000 prisoners of war, while they 
had never lost a flag, or failed to capture a gun 
for which they fought. 

In the afternoon of that memorable day Gen- 
eral Custer and his staff rode to the outskirts 
of Washington, where his beloved Third Cav- 
alry Division had encamped after returning 
from taking part in the review. The trumpet 
was sounded, and the call brought these war- 
worn veterans out once more, not for a charge, 
not for duty, but to say farewell. Down the 
ling rode their yellow-haired " boy general," 



The Boy General 



waving his hat, but setting his teeth and trying 
to hold with iron nerve the quivering muscles 
of his speaking face ; keeping his eyes wide 
open, that the tears might not fall. 

Cheer after cheer rose on that soft spring 
air. Some enthusiastic voice started up afresh, 
before the hurrahs were done, " A tiger for old 
Curley ! " Off came the hats again, and up 
went hundreds of arms, waving the good-by 
and wafting innumerable blessings after the 
man who was sending them home in a blaze of 
glory. I began to realize, as I watched this 
sad parting, that no friendship was like that 
cemented by danger on the battle-field. 

The soldiers, accustomed to suppression 
through strict military discipline, now vehe- 
mently expressed their feelings ; and though 
it gladdened the General's heart, it was still 
hard work to endure it without show of emo- 
tion. As he rode up to where I was waiting, 
he could not trust himself to speak to me. To 
those intrepid men he was indebted for his 
success. Their unfailing trust in his judgment, 
their willingness to follow where he led — ah ! 
he knew well that one looks upon such men 
but once in a lifetime. Some of the soldiers 
called out for the General's wife. The staff 
urged me to ride forward to the troops, and I 



Leaving the Army of the Potomac J 

tried to do so, but after a few steps I begged 
those beside whom I rode to take me back, I 
was too overcome from having seen the suffer- 
ing on my husband's face to endure it. 

As the officers gathered about the General 
and wrung his hand in parting, to my surprise 
the soldiers gave me a cheer. Though very 
grateful for the tribute to me as their acknowl- 
edged comrade, I did not feel that I deserved it. 

Once more the General leaped into the sad- 
dle, and we rode out of sight. How glad I 
was, as I watched the set features of my hus- 
band's face, saw his eyes fixed immovably in 
front of him, listened in vain for one word 
from his overburdened heart, that I, being a 
woman, need not tax every nerve to suppress 
emotion, but could let the tears stream down 
my face, on all our silent way back to the 
city. 

Then began the gathering of our " traps," 
a hasty collection of a few suitable things for a 
Southern climate, orders about shipping the 
horses, a wild tearing around of the improv- 
ident, thoughtless staff — good fighters, but 
poor providers. It was a comfort, when I 
found myself grieving over the parting with 
my husband's division, that our military fam- 
ily were to go with us. At dark we were on 



s 



The Boy General 



the cars, with our faces turned southward. 
To General Custer this move had been unex- 
pected. General Sheridan knew that he need- 
ed little time to decide, so he sent for him and 
asked if he would like to take command of a 
division of cavalry on the Red River in Loui- 
siana, and march throughout Texas, with the 
possibility of eventually entering Mexico. 

The Great Powers of Europe, casting jealous 
eyes on the promise of a greater power in our 
young republic, and thinking to take advan- 
tage of the Civil War, had agreed to place the 
supernumerary Austrian Prince, Maximilian, 
on the throne in Mexico, and cede the country 
to France to keep a balance of power. Our 
Government felt the time had come to con- 
vince France that if there was to be an invasion 
of Mexico the one to do the seizure and gather 
in the spoils was Brother Jonathan. So an 
army of sufficient strength was sent into Texas, 
led by General Custer, to settle the question of 
invasion by the mere presence of our troops 
so near the border. 

Very wisely the General kept a part of the 
understanding why he was sent South from 
the " weepy " member of his family. He pre- 
ferred transportation by steamer rather than 
to be floated southward on a flood of feminine 



Political Temptations g 



tears. In order to spare me anxiety he spoke 
only of that part of the order pertaining to the 
establishment of law in Texas. The State hav- 
ing been outside the limit where the armies 
marched and fought, was unhappily unaware 
that the war was over, and it had become the 
home of bushwhackers and all kinds of lawless 
desperadoes. Before the winter was over the 
civil authorities of Texas began to be able to 
carry out the laws. It was considered un- 
necessary to retain the division of cavalry in 
the South. The anticipated trouble with Mex- 
ico was over and the General was ordered 
North to await his assignment to a new sta- 
tion. 



CHAPTER II 

POLITICAL TEMPTATIONS 

Our home-coming was a great pleasure to us 
and to our two families. My own father was 
proud of the General's administration of civil 
as well as military affairs in Texas, and enjoyed 
the congratulatory letter of Governor Hamil- 
ton deeply. The temptations to induce Gen- 
eral Custer to leave the service and enter civil 
life began at once. He had not been subjected 



io The Boy General 



to such allurements the year after the war, when 
the country was offering posts of honor to re- 
turned soldiers, but this summer of our return 
from Texas, all sorts of suggestions were made. 
I can scarcely see now how a man of twenty- 
five could have turned his back upon such allur- 
ing schemes for wealth as were held out to him. 
It was at that time much more customary than 
now, even, to establish corporations with an 
officer's name at the head who was known to 
have come through the war with irreproachable 
honor. The country was so unsettled by the 
four years of strife that it was like beginning 
all over again, when old companies were started 
anew. Confidence had to be struggled for, and 
names of prominent men as associate partners 
or presidents were sought for persistently. 

Politics offered another form of temptation. 
The people demanded for their representatives 
the soldiers under whom they had served, pre- 
ferring to follow the same leaders in the politi- 
cal field that had led them in battle. The old 
soldiers, and civilians also, talked openly of 
General Custer for Congressman or Governor. 
It was a summer of excitement and uncertainty. 
How could it be otherwise to a boy who, five 
brief years before, was a beardless youth with 
no apparent future before him ? When the 



Political Temptations 1 1 



General was offered an appointment as foreign 
Minister, I kept silence as best I could, but it 
was desperately hard work. I was inwardly 
very proud, but I concealed the fact because 
my husband expressed such horror of inflated 
people. 

Among the first propositions was one for the 
General to take temporary service with Mexico. 
This scheme found no favor with me. It meant 
more fighting and further danger for my hus- 
band, and anxiety and separation for me. 

Carvajal, who was then at the head of the 
Juarez military government, offered the post 
of Adjutant-General of Mexico to General Cus- 
ter. The money inducements were, to give 
twice the salary in gold that a major-general in 
our army receives. As his salary had come 
down from a major-general's pay of $8,000 to 
$2,000, this might have been a temptation. 
There was a stipulation that one or two thou- 
sand men should be raised in the United States, 
any debts assumed in organizing this force to 
be paid by the Mexican Liberal Government. 
Senor Romero, the Mexican Minister, did what 
he could to further the application of Carvajal, 
and General Grant wrote his approval of Gen- 
eral Custer's acceptance, in a letter in which he 
speaks of my husband in unusually flattering 



12 



The Boy General 



terms as one " who rendered such distinguished 
service as a cavalry officer during the war," 
adding, " There was no officer in that branch 
of the service who had the confidence of Gen- 
eral Sheridan to a greater degree than General 
Custer, and there is no officer in whose judg- 
ment I have greater faith than in Sheridan's. 
Please understand, then, that I mean to endorse 
General Custer in a high degree. " 

The stagnation of peace was being felt by 
those who had lived a breathless four years at 
the front. However much they might rejoice 
that carnage had ceased, it was very hard to 
quiet themselves into a life of inaction. No 
wonder our officers went to the Khedive for 
service ! no wonder this promise of active duty 
was an inviting prospect for my husband ! It 
took a long time for civilians, even, to tone 
themselves down to the jog-trot of peace. 

Maximilian was then uncertain in his hold 
on the Government he had established, and it 
would have been an easy matter to drive out 
the usurper. The question was settled by the 
Government's refusing to grant the year's leave 
for which application was made, and the Gen- 
eral was too fond of his country to take any but 
temporary service in another. 

This decision made me very grateful and when 



Political Temptations 



13 



there was no longer danger of further exposure 
of life, I was also thankful for the expressions 
of confidence and admiration of my husband's 
ability as a soldier that this contemplated move 
had drawn out. I was willing my husband 
should accept any offer he had received except 
the last. I was tempted to beg him to resign ; 
for this meant peace of mind and a tranquil life 
for me. It was my father's counsel alone that 
kept me from urging each new proposition to 
take up the life of a civilian. He advised me 
to forget myself. He knew well what a diffi- 
cult task it was to school myself to endure the 
life on which I had entered so thoughtlessly as 
a girl. 

He had a keen sense of humor, and could 
not help reminding me occasionally, when I 
told him despairingly that I could not, I simply 
would not, live a life where I could not be al- 
ways with my husband, of days before I knew 
the General, when I declared to my parents, if 
ever I did marry it would not be a dentist, as 
our opposite neighbor appeared never to leave 
the house. It seemed to me then that the wife 
had a great deal to endure in the constant pres- 
ence of her husband. 

My father, strict in his sense of duty, con- 
stantly appealed to me to consider only my 



14 The Boy General 



husband's interests, and forget my own selfish 
desires. He used in those days to walk the 
floor and say to me, " My child, put no obstacles 
in the way to the fulfilment of his destiny. 
He chose his profession. He is a born soldier. 
There he must abide." 

In the midst of this indecision, when the 
General was obliged to be in Washington on 
business, my father was taken ill. The one 
whom I so sorely needed in all those ten years 
that followed, when I was often alone in the 
midst of dangers and anxieties, stepped into 
heaven as peacefully as if going into another 
room. His last words were to urge me to do 
my duty as a soldier's wife. In the autumn 
the appointment to the Seventh Cavalry came, 
with orders to go to Fort Garland. One would 
have imagined, by the jubilant manner in which 
this official document was unfolded and read to 
me, that it was the inheritance of a principality. 
Out of our camp-luggage a map was produced, 
and Fort Garland was discovered, after long 
prowling about with the first finger, in the 
space given to the Rocky Mountains. Then 
the General launched into visions of what un- 
speakable pleasure he would have, fishing for 
mountain trout and hunting deer. 

It would have been a stolid soul indeed that 



Political Temptations 15 



did not begin to think Fort Garland a sort of 
earthly paradise. The sober colors in this vivid 
picture meant a small, obscure post, several hun- 
dred miles from any railroad, not much more 
than a handful of men to command, the most 
complete isolation, and no prospect of an active 
campaign, as it was far from the range of the 
warlike Indians. But Fort Garland soon faded 
from our view, in the excitement and interest 
over Fort Riley, as soon as our orders were 
changed to that post. We had no difficulty in 
finding it on the map, as it was comparatively 
an old post, and the Kansas Pacific Railroad 
was within ten miles of the Government reser- 
vation. 

We ascertained, by inquiry, that it was better 
to buy household articles at Leavenworth, than 
to attempt to carry along even a simple outfit. 
It was difficult to realize that Kansas had a city 
of 25,000 inhabitants, with several daily papers. 
Still, I was quite willing to trust to Leaven- 
worth for the purchase of household furniture, 
as it seemed to me that housekeeping in garri- 
son quarters was a sort "of camping out after all, 
with one foot in a house and another in position 
to put into the stirrup and spin " over the hills 
and far away." 



1 6 The Boy General 



CHAPTER III 

WESTWARD HO! 

When we were ready to set out for the West, 
in October, 1866, our caravan summed up some- 
thing like this list: my husband's three horses, 
my own horse, Custis Lee, several hounds given 
to the General by the planters with whom he 
had hunted deer in Texas, a superb greyhound, 
his head carried so loftily as he walked his 
lordly way among the other dogs, that I thought 
he would have asked to carry his family-tree on 
his brass collar, could he have spoken for his 
rights. Last of all, some one had given us the 
ugliest white bull-dog I ever saw. But in 
time we came to think that the twist in his 
lumpy tail, the curve in his bow legs, the am- 
bitious nose, which drew the upper lip above the 
heaviest of protruding jaws, were simply beau- 
ties, for the dog was so affectionate and loyal, 
that everything which at first seemed a draw- 
back, leaned finally to virtue's side. He was 
well named " Turk," and a " set-to " or so with 
Byron, the domineering greyhound, established 
his rights, so that it only needed a deep growl 



Westward Ho / 



17 



and an uprising of the bristles on his back to 
recall to the overbearing aristocrat some whole- 
some lessons given him when the acquaintance 
began. Turk was devoted to the colt Phil, and 
the intimacy of the two was comical ; Phil re- 
paid Turk's little playful nips at the legs by 
lifting him in his teeth as high as the feed-box, 
by the loose skin of his back. But nothing 
could get a whimper out of him, for he was the 
pluckiest of brutes. He curled himself up in 
Phil's stall when he slept, and in travelling was 
his close companion in the box-car. If we took 
the dog to drive with us, he had to be in the 
buggy, as our time otherwise would have 
been constantly engaged in dragging him off 
from any dog that strutted around him and 
needed a lesson in humility. When Turk was 
returned to Phil, after any separation, they 
greeted each other in a most human way. Turk 
leaped around the colt, and in turn was rubbed 
and nosed about with speaking little snorts of 
welcome. When we came home to this ugly 
duckling, he usually made a spring and landed 
in my lap, as if he were the tiniest, silkiest little 
Skye in dogdom. He half closed his eyes, with 
that expression peculiar to affectionate dogs, 
and did his little smile at my husband and me 
by raising his upper lip and showing his front 



1 8 The Boy General 



teeth. All this with an ignoring of the other 
dogs and an air of exclusion, as if we three — his 
master, mistress, and himself — composed all 
there was of earth worth knowing. 

We had two servants, one being Eliza, our 
faithful colored woman. She had come home 
with me to care for my father in his last illness. 
We had also a worthless colored boy, who had 
returned with the horses. What intellect he 
had was employed in devising schemes to es- 
cape work. 

Last of all to mention in our party was Diana, 
the pretty belle of Monroe. The excitement 
of anticipation gave added brightness to her 
eyes, and the head, sunning over with a hun- 
dred curls, danced and coquetted as she talked 
of the future. 

One of our Detroit friends invited us to go 
w T ith a party to St. Louis; so we had a gay send- 
off for our new home. I don't remember to 
have had an anxiety as to the future ; I was 
wholly given over to the joy of realizing that 
the war was over, and now the one great danger 
was passed, I felt as if all that sort of life was 
forever ended. In St. Louis we had a round of 
gayety. The great Fair was then at its best, 
for everyone was making haste to dispel the 
gloom that our terrible war had cast over the 



Westward Ho ! 



19 



land. There was not a corner of the Fair- 
ground to which my husband did not penetrate. 

The junketing and frolic came to an end in 
a few days, and our faces were again turned 
westward to a life about as different from the 
glitter of a gay city in a holiday week as can be 
imagined. Leavenworth was our first halt, and 
its well-built streets and excellent stores sur- 
prised us. It had long been the outfitting place 
for our officers. The soldiers drew supplies 
from the military post, and the officers furnished 
themselves with camp equipage from the city. 
Here also they bought condemned ambulances, 
and put them in order for travelling-carriages 
for their families. I remember getting a faint 
glimmer of the climate we were about to endure, 
by seeing a wagon floored, and its sides lined 
with canvas, which was stuffed to keep out the 
cold, while a little sheet-iron stove was firmly 
fixed at one end, with a bit of miniature pipe 
protruding through the roof. Everything was 
transported in the great army-wagons called 
prairie-schooners. These were well named, as 
the two ends of the wagon inclined upward, 
like the bow and stern of a fore-and-after. It is 
hard to realize how strange a long train of sup- 
plies for one of the distant posts looked as it 
wound slowly over the plains. The blue wagon 



20 The Boy General 



beds, with white canvas covers rising up ever 
so high, disclosed, in the small circle where 
they were drawn together at the back, all kinds 
of material for the clothing and feeding of the 
army in the distant Territories. The number 
of mules to a wagon varies ; sometimes there 
are four, and again six. 

The driver, if he is not a stolid Mexican, takes 
much pride in his mules. By some unknown 
means, poor as he is, he possesses himself of 
fox-tails, which he fastens to their bridle, and 
the vagaries in the clipping of the poor beasts' 
tails would set the fashion to a Paris hair- 
dresser. They are shaved a certain distance, 
and then a tuft is left, making a bushy ring. 
The coats of the mules sometimes shine like 
the fine hair of a good horse. Alas ! not when, 
in the final stages of a long march, the jaded, 
half-starved beasts dragged themselves over 
the trail. Driver and lead mules, even, lose am- 
bition under the scorching sun, and with the 
insufficient food and long water famines. 

My husband had the utmost respect for a 
mule's sense When I looked upon mules as 
dull, half-alive animals, he bade me watch how 
deceitful were appearances, as they showed 
such cunning, and evinced the wisdom of a 
quick-witted thoroughbred, when apparently 



Westward Ho / 



21 



they were unobserving, sleepy brutes. It was 
the General who made me notice the skill and 
rapidity with which a group of six mules would 
straighten out what seemed to be a hopeless 
tangle of chains and harness, into which they 
had kicked themselves when there was a dis- 
turbance among them. One crack of the whip 
from the driver who had tethered them after a 
march, accompanied by a plain statement of his 
opinion of such " fools," would send the whole 
collection wide apart, and it was but a twink- 
ling before they extricated themselves from 
what I thought a hopeless mess. No chains 
or straps were broken, and a meek, subdued 
look pervading the group left not a trace of 
the active heels that a moment before had filled 
the air. 

The prairie-schooner disappeared with the 
advancing railroad ; but I am glad to see that 
General Meigs has perpetuated his memory, 
by causing this old means of transportation to 
be made one of the designs in the beautiful 
frieze carved around the outside of the Pension 
Office at Washington. Ungainly and cumber- 
some as these wagons were, they merit some 
such monument, as part of the history of the 
early days of frontier life in our country. We 
were in the West several years before the rail- 



22 The Boy General 



road was completed to Denver, and the overland 
trains became an every-day sight to us. Citi- 
zens used oxen a great deal for transportation, 
and there is no picture that represents the 
weariness and laggard progress of life like an 
ox-train bound for Santa Fe or Denver. The 
prairie-schooner might set out freshly painted, 
but it soon became gray with layer upon layer 
of alkali dust. The oxen — well, nothing save a 
snail can move more slowly, and the exhaustion 
of these beasts, after weeks of travel, was piti- 
ful. Imagine, also, the unending vigil when the 
trains were insecurely guarded; for in those 
days there was an immense unprotected fron- 
tier, and seemingly only a handful of cavalry. 

" The Indians were, unfortunately, located 
on the great highway of Western travel ; and 
commerce, not less than emigration, demanded 
their removal." There are many conflicting 
opinions as to the course pursued to clear the 
way ; but I only wish to speak now of the im- 
pression the trains made upon me, as we con- 
stantly saw the long, dusty column wending its 
serpentine way over the sun-baked earth. A 
group of cavalry, with their drooping horses, 
rode in front and at the rear. The wagon- 
master was usually the very spirit of valor. It 
is true he formed such a habit of shooting that 



Westward Ho / 



23 



he grew indiscriminate, and should any of the 
lawless desperadoes whom he hired as team- 
sters ruffle his blood, kept up to boiling-heat 
by suspense, physical exposure, and exasperat- 
ing employees, he knew no way of settling 
troubles except the effectual quietus that a 
bullet secures. 

It seemed to be expected that the train-master 
would be a villain. Whatever was their record 
as to the manner of arranging private disputes, 
a braver class of men never followed a trail, and 
some of them were far superior to their lot. 
Their tender care of women who crossed in 
these ox-trains, to join their husbands, ought to 
be commemorated. I have somewhere read 
one of their remarks when a girl, going to her 
mother, had been secreted in a private wagon, 
and there was no knowledge of her presence 
until the Indians were discovered to be near. 
" 'Tain't no time to be teamin' women folks over 
the trail with sech a fearsom sperit for Injuns 
as I be." He, like some of the bravest men I 
have known, spoke of himself as timid, while 
he knew no fear. It certainly unnerved the 
most valiant man when Indians were lurking 
near, to realize the fate that hung over women 
intrusted to their care. It makes the heart 
beat, even to look at a picture of the old mode 



24 The Boy General 



of traversing the highway of Western travel. 
The sight of the pictured train, peacefully lum- 
bering on its sleepy way, the scarcely revolving 
wheels, creaking out a protest against even 
that effort, recalls the agony, the suspense, the 
horror with which every inch of that long route 
has been made. The heaps of stones by the 
wayside, or the buffalo bones, collected to 
mark the spot where some man fell from an 
Indian arrow, are now disappearing. The hur- 
ricanes beating upon the hastily prepared me- 
morials have scattered the bleached bones of 
the bison, and rolled into the tufted grass the 
few stones with which the train-men, at risk of 
their own lives, delayed long enough to mark 
their comrade's grave. 

The faded photographs or the old prints of 
those overland trains speak to me but one story. 
Instantly I recall the hourly vigilance, the rest- 
less eyes scanning the horizon, the breathless 
suspense, when the pioneers or soldiers knew 
from unmistakable signs that the Indian was 
lying in wait. In what contrast to the dull, 
scarcely moving oxen were these keen-eyed 
heroes, with every nerve strained, every sense 
on the alert. And how they were maddened 
by the fate that consigned them, at such mo- 
ments, to the mercy of " dull, driven cattle. " 



Westward Ho / 



25 



When I have seen officers and soldiers lay their 
hands lovingly on the neck of their favorite 
horse, and say, " He saved my life," I knew 
well what a man felt when his horse took fire 
at knowledge of danger, and sped on the wings 
of the wind, till he was lost to his pursuers, a 
tiny black speck on the horizon. The pathos of 
a soldier's parting with his horse moved us to 
quick sympathy. It often happens that a 
trooper retains the same animal through his en- 
tire enlistment, and it comes to be his most in- 
timate friend. There is nothing he will not do 
to provide him with food ; if the forage runs 
low or the grazing is insufficient, stealing for 
his horse is reckoned a virtue among soldiers. 
Imagine, then, the anxiety, the real suffering, 
with which a soldier watches his faithful beast 
growing weaker day by day, from exhaustion 
or partial starvation. He walks beside him to 
spare his strength, and finally, when it is no 
longer possible to keep up with the column, and 
the soldier knows how fatal the least delay may 
be in an Indian country, it is more pitiful than 
almost any sight I recall, the sadness of his de- 
parture from the skeleton, whose eyes follow 
his master in wondering affection, as he walks 
away with the saddle and accoutrements. 
If the wagons held merchandise only, by 



26 The Boy General 



which the pioneer hoped to grow rich, the risk 
and suspense attending these endless marches 
were not worth commemorating ; but the bulk 
of the freight was the actual necessaries of life. 
Conceive, if you can, how these brave men felt 
themselves chained, as they drove or guarded 
the food for those living far in advance. There 
were not enough to admit of a charge on the 
enemy, and the defensive is an exasperating 
position for a soldier or frontiersman. He 
longs to advance on the foe ; but no such priv- 
ilege was allowed them, for in these toilsome 
journeys they had often to use precautions to 
hide themselves. If Indians were discovered 
to be roaming near, the camp was established, 
trains corralled, animals secured inside a tem- 
porary stockade ; the fires for coffee were for- 
bidden, for smoke rises like a funnel, and hangs 
out an instant signal in that clear air. Even 
the consoling pipe was smoked under a sage- 
bush. Few words were spoken, the loud oaths 
sank into low mutterings, and the bray of a 
hungry mule, the clank of wagon-chains, or the 
stamping of cattle on the baked earth, sounded 
like thunder in the ears of the anxious, expect- 
ant men. 

Fortunately, our journey in these trains was 
not at once forced upon us at Leavenworth. 



Westward Ho! 27 



The Kansas Pacific Railroad, projected to Den- 
ver, was built within ten miles of Fort Riley, 
and it was to be the future duty of the Seventh 
Cavalry to guard the engineers in building the 
remainder of the road out to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. It did not take us long to purchase an 
outfit in the shops, for, as usual, our finances 
were low. We had the sense to listen to a hint 
from some practical officer who had been far 
beyond railroads, and buy a cook-stove the first 
thing, and this proved to be the most important 
of our possessions when we reached our post, 
so far from the land of shops. Not many hours 
after we left Leavenworth the settlements be- 
came farther and farther apart, and we began 
to realize that we were actual pioneers. Kansas 
City was then but a small town, seemingly with 
a hopeless future, as the bluffs rose steep from the 
river, and even when the summit was reached, 
the ups and downs of the streets were discour- 
aging. It seemed, then, as if it would never be 
worth while to use it as a site for a town ; there 
would be a lifetime of grading. It is very easy 
to become a city forefather in such a town, for 
in the twenty-one years since then, it has grown 
into a city of over 132,000 inhabitants — but they 
are still grading. The lots which we could 
have had almost for the asking, sell now for 



28 The Boy General 



$1,000 a front foot. Topeka, the capital, showed 
no evidence of its importance, except the little 
circle of stars that surrounded it on our atlas. 
There were but three towns beyond Fort Riley 
then, and those were built, if I may so express 
it, of canvas and dug-outs. 

Our railroad journey came to an end about 
ten miles from Fort Riley. The laborers were 
laying track from that point. It had been a 
sort of gala day, for General Sherman had been 
asked by railroad officials to drive the final 
spike of the division of the road then finished. 
We found a wagon waiting for our luggage, 
and an ambulance to carry us the rest of the 
journey. These vehicles are not uncomfortable 
when the long seats on either side are so ar- 
ranged that they make a bed for the ill or 
wounded by spreading them out, but as travel- 
ling conveyances I could not call them a success. 
The seats are narrow, with no back to speak of, 
and covered with carriage-cloth, which can 
keep you occupied, if the country is rough, in 
regaining the slippery surface for any number 
of miles at a stretch. Fort Riley came in sight 
when we were pretty well tired out. It was 
my first view of a frontier post, and came upon 
me as a great surprise. I supposed, of course, 
it would be exactly like Fortress Monroe, with 



Westward Ho / 



29 



stone walls, turrets for the sentinels, and a deep 
moat. I could scarcely believe that the build- 
ings, a story and a half high, placed around a 
parade-ground, were all there was of Fort Riley. 
No trees, and hardly any signs of vegetation 
except the buffalo-grass that curled its sweet 
blades close to the ground, as if to protect the 
nourishment it held from the blazing sun. The 
post was beautifully situated on a wide plateau, 
at the junction of the Republican and Smoky 
Hill rivers. The Plains, as they waved away 
on all sides of us, like the surface of a vast 
ocean, had the charm of great novelty, and the 
absence of trees was at first forgotten in the 
fascination of seeing such an immense stretch 
of country, with the soft undulations of green 
turf rolling on, seemingly, to the setting sun. 
The eye was relieved by the fringe of cotton- 
wood that bordered the rivers below us. 

Though we came afterward to know, on 
toilsome marches under the sweltering sun, 
that enthusiasm would not outlast such trials, 
still, a rarely exultant feeling takes possession 
of one in the gallops over the Plains, when in 
early spring they are a trackless sea of soft 
verdure. And the enthusiasm returns when the 
campaign for the summer is over, and riding is 
taken up for pleasure. My husband was full of 



3<D The Boy General 



delight over the exquisite haze that covered the 
land with a faint purple light. But we had 
little time to take in atmospheric effects, as 
evening was coming on and we were yet to be 
housed, while servants, horses, dogs, and all of 
us were hungry after our long drive. The 
General halted the wagon outside the post, and 
left us to go and report to the commanding 
officer. 

I knew nothing of the hospitality of a frontier 
post, and I begged to remain in the wagon 
until our quarters were assigned us in the gar- 
rison. Up to this time we had all been in 
splendid spirits; the novelty, the lovely day 
and exhilarating air, and all the possibilities of 
a future with a house of our own, or, rather, 
one lent to us by Uncle Sam, seemed to fill up a 
delightful cup to the brim. We sat outside the 
post a long time growing hungrier and thirstier. 
Eliza sat on the seat with the driver, and both 
muttered occasional hungry words, but our 
Diana and I had the worst of it. We had 
bumped over the country, sometimes violently 
jammed against the framework of the canvas 
cover, and most of the time sliding off from the 
slippery cushions upon the insulted dogs — for 
of course the General had begged a place for 
two of them. He had kept them in order all 



Westward Ho ! 



3i 



the way from the termination of the railroad ; 
but now that he was absent, Turk and Byron 
renewed hostilities, and in the narrow space 
they scrambled and snarled and sprang at each 
other. When the General came back he found 
the little hands of our curly-headed girl 
clinched over the collar of Byron at one end 
of the ambulance, while Turk sat on my lap, 
swelling with rage because my fingers were 
twisted in the chain that held him, as I sat at 
the door shaking with terror. It was quick 
work to end our troubles for the time ; but the 
General threw us into a new panic by saying 
we must make up our minds to be the guests 
of the commanding officer. Tired and travel- 
stained we were driven to one of the quarters 
and made our entrance among strangers. I 
then realized that we had reached a spot where 
the comforts of life could not be had for love 
or money. 

It is a strange sensation to arrive at a place 
where money is of little use in providing shelter, 
and here we were beyond even the commonest 
railroad hotel. Mrs. Gibbs, who received us, 
was put to a severe test that night. Already a 
room in her small house had been prepared for 
General Sherman, who had arrived earlier in 
the day, and now there were five of us bearing 



32 The Boy General 



down upon her. I told her how I had begged 
to be allowed to go into quarters, even though 
there were no preparations, not even a fireplace 
where Eliza could have cooked us food enough 
over the coals to stay hunger ; but she assured 
me that she was quite accustomed to a state of 
affairs where there was nothing to do but 
quarter yourself upon strangers, and then gave 
up her own room to our use. 

The next day my husband assumed command 
of the garrison, and our few effects were moved 
into a large double house built for the com- 
manding officer. There were parlors on one 
side, whose huge folding doors were flung 
open, and made our few articles of furniture 
look lonely and meagre. We had but six 
wooden chairs to begin with, and when, a few 
miles more of the railroad being completed, a 
party of one hundred and fifty excursionists 
arrived, I seated six of them — yes, seven, for 
one was tired enough to sit on a trunk — and 
then concluded I would own up that in the 
larger rooms of the house, into which they 
looked significantly, there were no more chairs 
concealed. I had done my best, and tried to 
make up for not seating or feeding them, by 
very busy talking. Meanwhile there were in- 
cessant inquiries for the General. It seems 



An Expedition A gams t the Indians 33 

that he had begun that little trick of hiding 
from strangers, even then. He had seen the 
advancing column of tourists, and fled. 



CHAPTER IV 

AN EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS 

One of the hardest trials, in our first winter 
with the regiment, was that arising from the 
constantly developing tendency to hard drink- 
ing. 

While General Custer steadily fought against 
drunkenness, he was not remorseless or unjust. 
I could cite one instance after another, to prove 
with what patience he strove to reclaim some 
who were hopeless when they joined us. His 
greatest battles were not fought in the tented 
field ; his most glorious combats were those 
waged in daily, hourly fights on a more hotly 
contested field than was ever known in com- 
mon warfare. The truest heroism is not that 
which goes out supported by strong battalions 
and reserve artillery. 

I have known my husband to stand almost 
alone in his opinion regarding temperance, in a 
garrison containing enough people to make a 



34 The Boy General 



good-sized village. He was thoroughly unos- 
tentatious about his convictions, and rarely said 
much ; but he stood to his fixed purpose, purely 
from horror of the results of drinking. With- 
out preaching or parading his own strength, 
General Custer stood among the officers and 
men as firm an advocate of temperance as any 
evangelist whose life is devoted to the cause. 

An expedition was to leave Fort Riley com- 
manded by General Hancock, then at the head 
of the Department of the Missouri. He arrived 
at our post with seven companies of infantry 
and a battery of artillery. His letters to the 
Indian agents of the various tribes give the ob- 
jects of the march into the Indian country. He 
wrote : 

" I have the honor to state that I am at pres- 
ent preparing an expedition to the Plains, which 
will soon be ready to move. My object in do- 
ing so at this time is, to convince the Indians 
within the limits of this Department that we 
are able to punish any of them who may molest 
travellers across the Plains, or who may commit 
other hostilities against the whites. We desire 
to avoid, if possible, any troubles with the 
Indians, and to treat them with justice, and 
according to the requirements of our treaties 
with them ; and I wish especially, in my deal- 



An Expedition Against the Indians 35 

ings with them, to act through the agents of 
the Indian Department as far as it is possible to 
do so. If you, as their agent, can arrange these 
matters satisfactorily with them, we shall be 
pleased to defer the whole subject to you. In 
case of your inability to do so, I would be 
pleased to have you accompany me when I visit 
the country of your tribes, to show that the 
officers of the Government are acting in har- 
mony. I shall be pleased to talk with any of 
the chiefs whom we may meet. I do not ex- 
pect to make war against any of the Indians 
of your agency, unless they commence war 
against us." 

In General Custer's account, he says that " the 
Indians had been guilty of numerous thefts and 
murders during the preceding summer and 
autumn. They had attacked the stations of 
the overland mail-route, killed the employees, 
burned the stations and captured the stock. 
Citizens had been murdered in their homes on 
the frontier of Kansas ; and murders had been 
committed on the Arkansas route. The prin- 
cipal perpetrators of these acts were the Chey- 
ennes and Sioux. The agent of the former, if 
not a party to the murder on the Arkansas, 
knew who the guilty persons were, yet took no 
steps to bring the murderers to punishment. 



36 The Boy General 



Such a course would have interfered with his 
trade. It was not to punish for these sins of 
the past that the expedition was set on foot, but 
rather, by its imposing appearance and its early 
presence in the Indian country, to check or in- 
timidate the Indians from a repetition of their 
late conduct. During the winter the leading 
chiefs and warriors had threatened that, as soon 
as the grass was up, the tribes would combine 
in a united outbreak along the entire frontier." 

There had been little opportunity to put the 
expedition out of our minds for some time pre- 
vious to its departure. The sound from the 
blacksmith's shop, of the shoeing of horses, the 
drilling on the level ground outside of the post, 
and the loading of wagons about the quarter- 
master and commissary storehouses, went on 
all day long. At that time the sabre was more 
in use than it was later, and it seemed to me 
that I could never again shut my ears to the 
sound of the grindstone, when I found that the 
sabres were being sharpened. The troopers, 
when mounted, were curiosities, and a decided 
disappointment to me. The horse, when pre- 
pared for the march, barely showed head and 
tail. My ideas of the dashing trooper going 
out to war, clad in gay uniform and curbing 
a curveting steed, faded before the reality. 



An Expedition Against the Indians 37 

Though the wrapping together of the blanket, 
overcoat, and shelter-tent is made a study of 
the tactics, it could not be reduced to anything 
but a good-sized roll at the back of the saddle. 
The carbine rattled on one side of the soldier, 
slung from the broad strap over his shoulder, 
while a frying-pan, a tin cup, a canteen, and a 
haversack of hardtack clattered and knocked 
about on his other side. There were possibly 
a hundred rounds of ammunition in his car- 
tridge-belt, which took away all the symmetry 
that his waist might otherwise have had. If 
the company commander was not too strict, a 
short butcher-knife, thrust into a home-made 
leather case, kept company with the pistol. It 
was not a murderous weapon, but was used to 
cut up game or slice off the bacon, which, sput- 
tering in the skillet at evening camp-fire, was 
the main feature of the soldier's supper. The 
tin utensils, the carbine, and the sabre kept up 
a continual din, as the horses seemingly crept 
over the trail at the rate of three to four miles 
an hour. In addition to the cumbersome load, 
there were sometimes lariats and iron pins 
slung on one side of the saddle, to tether the 
animals when they grazed at night. There was 
nothing picturesque about this lumbering cav- 
alryman, and our men did not then sit their 



38 The Boy General 



horses with the serenity that they eventually 
attained. If the beast shied or kicked — for the 
poor thing was itself learning to do soldiering, 
and occasionally flung out his heels — it was a 
question whether the newly made Mars would 
land on the crupper or hang helplessly among 
the domestic utensils suspended to his saddle. 
How sorry I was for them, they were so bruised 
and lamed by their first lessons in horsemanship. 
Every one laughed at every one else, and this 
made it seem doubly trying to me. I remem- 
bered my own first lessons among fearless cav- 
alrymen — a trembling figure, about as uncer- 
tain in the saddle as if it were a wave of the 
sea, the hands cold and nerveless, and, I regret 
to add, the tears streaming down my cheeks ! 
These recollections made me writhe when I 
saw a soldier describing an arc in the air, and 
his self-freed horse galloping off to the music 
of tin and steel in concert. Just in proportion 
as I had suffered for their misfortunes, did I 
enjoy the men when, after the campaign, they 
returned, perfect horsemen and with such phy- 
siques as might serve for a sculptor's model. 

At the time the expedition formed at Fort 
Riley, I had little realization what a serious af- 
fair an Indian campaign was. We had heard 
of the outrages committed on the settlers, the 



An Expedition Against the Indians 39 

attacking of the overland supply-trains, and the 
burning of the stage-stations ; but the rumors 
seemed to come from so far away that the re- 
ality was never brought home to me until I 
saw for myself what horror attends Indian dep- 
redations. 

As the days drew nearer for the expedition 
to set out, my husband tried to keep my spirits 
up by reminding me that the council to be held 
with the chiefs of the warlike tribes, when they 
reached that part of the country infested with 
the marauding Indians, was something he 
hoped might result in our speedy reunion. He 
endeavored to induce me to think, as he did, 
that the Indians would be so impressed with 
the magnitude of the expedition, that after the 
council, they would accept terms and abandon 
the war-path. Eight companies of our own 
regiment were going out, and these, with in- 
fantry and artillery, made a force of fourteen 
hundred men. It was really a large expedi- 
tion, for the Plains ; but the recollections of the 
thousands of men in the Third Cavalry Division, 
which was the General's command during the 
war, made the expedition seem too small, even 
for safety. 

No one can enumerate the terrors that filled 
the hearts of women on the border in those des- 



40 The Boy General 



perate days. The band played its usual de- 
parting tune, " The Girl I Left Behind Me," 
but the expedition did not go out with song and 
shout, for it left loving, weeping women behind. 

There was silence as the column left the gar- 
rison. Alas! the closed houses they left were 
as still as if death had set its seal upon the 
door. 

We had not been long alone when a great 
danger threatened us. The level plateau about 
our post, and the valley along the river near 
us, were covered with dry prairie grass, which 
grows thick and is matted down into close 
clumps. It was discovered one day, that a nar- 
row thread of fire was creeping on in our direc- 
tion, scorching these tufts into shrivelled brown 
patches. People generally regard descriptions 
of prairie-fires as exaggerated, and I have seen 
a mild type of fire and know that a horse- 
man rides through such quiet conflagrations in 
safety. The trains on some of our Western 
roads pass harmless through belts of country 
when the flames are about them ; there is no 
impending peril because the winds are moder- 
ate. When a tiny flame is discovered in Kan- 
sas, where the wind blows a hurricane so much 
of the time, there is not a moment to lose. Al- 
though we saw what was hardly more than a 



An Expedition Against the Indians 41 

suspicion of smoke, and the slender, sinuous, 
red tongue along the ground, we knew that our 
lives were in jeopardy. Most of us were un- 
acquainted with those precautions which the 
experienced Plainsman takes, and we had no 
ranchmen near us to set us the example of cau- 
tion. We should have had furrows ploughed 
around the entire post in double lines, a certain 
distance apart, to check the approach of fire. 
There was no time to fight the foe with a like 
weapon, by burning over a portion of the grass 
between the advancing blaze and our post. 
The smoke rose higher and higher beyond us, 
and curling, creeping fire began to ascend into 
waves of flame with alarming rapidity, and in 
an incredibly short time we were overshadowed 
with a dark pall of smoke. 

The Plains were then new to us. It is impos- 
sible to appreciate their vastness at first. The 
very idea was hard to realize, that from where 
we lived we looked on an uninterrupted hor- 
izon. It fills the soul with wonder and awe to 
look upon the vastness of that sea of land for 
the first time. As the sky became lurid, and 
the blaze swept on toward us, surging to and 
fro in waving lines as it approached nearer and 
nearer, it seemed that the end of the world had 
really come. The whole earth appeared to be 



42 The Boy General 



on fire. The sky was a sombre canopy above 
us, on which flashes of brilliant light suddenly 
appeared as the flames rose. There were no 
screams nor cries, simply silent terror and shiv- 
erings of horror, as we women huddled to- 
gether to watch the remorseless fiend advanc- 
ing. The river was half a mile away, and our 
feet could not fly fast enough to reach the water 
before the enemy would be upon us. There 
was no such a thing as a fire-engine. 

In the midst of this appalling scene we were 
startled anew by a roar and shout from the sol- 
diers* barracks. Some one had, at last, pres- 
ence of mind to marshal the men into line, and 
assuming a commanding tone give imperative 
orders. Every one — citizen employees, soldiers, 
and officers — seized gunny-sacks, blankets, 
poles, anything available that came in their 
way, and raced wildly beyond the post into the 
midst of the blazing grass. Forming a line, 
they beat and lashed the flames with the blankets, 
so twisted as to deal powerful blows. It was a 
frenzied fight. The soldiers yelled and leaped 
frantically upon beds of blazing grass, condens- 
ing a lifetime of riotous energy into these per- 
ilous moments. We women were breathless; 
our hearts were filled with terror for the brave 
men who were working for our deliverance. 



An Expedition Against the Indians 43 

They were men to whom we had never spoken, 
nor were we likely ever to speak to them, so 
separated are the soldiers from an officers 
household. Sometimes we saw their eyes fol- 
lowing us respectfully, as we rode about the 
garrison, seeming to have in them an air of pos- 
session, as if saying, " That's our Captain's or 
our Colonel's wife." Now, they were showing 
their loyalty. 

No sooner had the flames been stamped out 
of one portion of the plain, than the whole body 
of men were obliged to rush off in another di- 
rection and begin the thrashing and tramping 
anew. But the wind, that had been the cause 
of our danger, saved us at last. Suddenly veer- 
ing, it swept the long tongues of flame over 
the bluffs beyond us, where the lonely coyote 
and its mate were driven into their lair. With 
faces begrimed and blistered, their clothes black 
with soot and smoke, their hands burnt and 
numb from violent effort, the soldiers dragged 
their exhausted bodies back to garrison, and 
dropped down anywhere to rest. 

The first letters, sent back from the expedi- 
tion by scouts, made red-letter days for us. The 
official envelope, stained with rain and mud, 
bursting open with the many pages crowded 
in, sometimes even tied with a string by some 



44 The Boy General 



messenger through whose hands the parcel 
passed, told stories of the vicissitudes of the 
missive in the difficult journey to our post. 
These letters gave accounts of the march to 
Fort Larned, where a great camp was estab- 
lished, to await the arrival of the chiefs with 
whom the council was to be held. While the 
runners were absent on their messages to the 
tribes, some effort was made to protect the 
troops against the still sharp winds of early 
spring. The halt and partly permanent camp 
was most fortunate ; for had the troops been 
on the march, a terrible snow-storm that en- 
sued would have wrought havoc. The animals 
were given an extra ration of oats, while the 
guards were obliged to whip the horses on the 
picket-line, to keep them in motion and pre- 
vent them from freezing. 

In my husband's letters there was a descrip- 
tion of his lending his dog to keep a friend 
warm. The officer came into his tent declar- 
ing that no amount of bedding had any effect in 
keeping out the cold, and he had come to bor- 
row a dog, to see if he could have one night's 
rest. Our old hound was offered, because he 
could cover such a surface, for he was a big 
brute, and when he once located himself he 
rarely moved until morning. My husband for- 



An Expedition Against the Indians 45 

got, in lending Rover, to mention a habit he 
had of sleeping audibly, besides a little fashion 
of twitching his legs and thumping his cumbrous 
tail. He was taken into the neighbor's tent, 
and induced to settle for the night, after the 
General's coaxing and pretence of going to 
sleep beside him. Later, when he went back 
to see how Rover worked as a furnace, he found 
the officer sound asleep on his back, emitting 
such nasal notes as only a stout man is equal 
to, while Rover lay sprawled over the broad 
chest of his host, where he had crept after he 
was asleep, snoring with an occasional inter- 
lude of a long-drawn snort, introduced in a 
manner peculiar to fox-hounds. The next morn- 
ing my husband was not in the least surprised 
to receive a call from the officer, who presented 
a request to exchange dogs. He said that he 
did not expect to have a bedfellow that would 
climb up over his lungs and crush all the breath 
out of his body. 

All these camp incidents brightened up the 
long letters, and kept me from realizing, as I 
read, what were the realities of that dreadful 
march. 

Succeeding letters from my husband gave an 
account of his first experience with the perfidy 
of the Indians. The council had been held, and 



46 The Boy General 



it was hoped that effectual steps were taken to 
establish peace. But, as is afterward related, 
the chiefs gave them the slip and deserted the 
village. The General pressed the retreating 
Indians so closely, the very night of their de- 
parture, that they were obliged to divide into 
smaller detachments, and even the experienced 
Plainsmen could no longer trace a trail. 



CHAPTER V 

THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER 

Meanwhile, as our officers were experienc- 
ing all sorts of new phases in life on their first 
march over the Plains, our vicissitudes were 
increasing at the peaceful Fort Riley. The 
cavalry were replaced by negro infantry. I 
had never seen negroes as soldiers, and these 
raw recruits had come from plantations, where 
I had known enough of their life, while in 
Texas and Louisiana, to realize what an irre- 
sponsible, child's existence it was. Further, it 
was very soon discovered that the officer who 
commanded them was for the first time accus- 
toming himself to colored troops, and did not 
know how to keep in check the undisciplined 



The Negro as a Soldier 47 

creatures. He was a quiet man, of scholarly 
tastes, and evidently entertained the belief that 
moral suasion would effect any purpose. The 
negroes, discovering what they could do under 
so mild a commander, grew each day more 
lawless. They used the parade-ground for a 
play -ground, turning hand -springs all over 
the sprouting grass, and vaulting in leap-frog 
over the bent back of a comrade. When one 
patted " juba " and a group danced, we seemed 
transformed into a minstrel show. There was 
not a trace of the well-conducted post of a 
short time before. 

All this frivolity was but the prelude to seri- 
ous trouble. The joy with which the negroes 
came into possession of a gun for the first time 
in their lives would have been ludicrous had 
it not been extremely dangerous. This was 
exhibited in their attempts to make themselves 
marksmen in a single day. They had no sort 
of idea how to care for their health. The ra- 
tion of a soldier is so large that a man who 
can eat it all in a day is renowned as a glutton. 
I think but few instances ever occur where the 
entire ration is consumed by one man. It is 
not expected, and, fortunately, Avith all the 
economy of the Government, the supply has 
never been cut down ; but the surplus is sold 

• 



48 The Boy General 



and a company fund established. By this 
means the variety is increased by buying 
vegetables, if it happen to be a land where 
they can be obtained. The negroes, for the 
first time in possession of all the coffee, pork, 
sugar, and hardtack they wanted, ate inordi- 
nately. There was no one to compel them 
to cleanliness. Pestilence broke out among 
them. Smallpox, black measles, and other 
contagious diseases raged, while the soldier's 
enemy, scurvy, took possession. 

Added to this there was much indiscriminate 
firing. One evening a few women were walk- 
ing outside the garrison. Our limits were not 
so circumscribed, at that time, as they were 
in almost all the places where I was stationed 
afterward. A sentinel always walked a beat 
in front of a small arsenal outside of the post, 
and, overcome with the grandeur of carrying 
a gun and wearing a uniform, he sought to 
impress his soldierly qualities on any one ap- 
proaching by a stentorian " Who comes thar?" 
It was entirely unnecessary, as it was light 
enough to see the fluttering skirts of women, 
for the winds kept our drapery in constant 
motion. Almost instantly after his challenge, 
the flash of his gun and the whizz of a bullet 
past us made us aware that our lives were 



The Negro as a Soldier 49 

spared only because of his inaccurate aim. Of 
course that ended our evening walks. 

There was one person who profited by the 
presence of the negro troops. Our Eliza was 
a great belle. The colored beaux waited on 
her assiduously, and I suspect they dined daily 
in our kitchen, as long as their brief season of 
favor lasted. They even sought to curry favor 
with Eliza by gifts to me — snaring quail, im- 
prisoning them in cages made of cracker-boxes, 
or wild-flowers as they appeared in the dells. 
For all these gifts I was duly grateful, but I 
was much afraid of a negro soldier, never- 
theless. 

At last our perplexities and frights reached 
a climax. One night we heard the measured 
tramp of feet over the road in front of our 
quarters, and they halted almost opposite our 
windows, where we could hear the voices. No 
loud " Halt, who comes there ! " rang out on 
the air, for the sentinel was enjoined to si- 
lence. Being frightened, I called to Eliza. 
She ran upstairs in response to my cry, and 
we watched with terror what went on. It 
soon was discovered to be a mutiny. The 
men growled and swore, and we could see by 
their threatening movements that they were 
in a state of exasperation. They demanded 



5<D 1 he Boy General 

the commanding officer, and as he did not ap- 
pear, they clenched their fists, and looked at 
the house as if they would tear it down, or at 
least break in the doors. It seemed a desper- 
ate situation to us. 

At last Eliza realized how terrified I was 
and gave an explanation of this alarming out- 
break. The men had for some time been de- 
manding the entire ration, and were especially 
clamorous for all the sugar that was issued. 
Very naturally, the Captain had withheld the 
supernumerary supplies, in order to make 
company savings for the purpose of buying 
vegetables. A mutiny over sugar may seem 
a small affair, but it assumes threatening pro- 
portions when a mob of menacing, furious men 
tramp up and down in front of one's house, 
and there is no safe place of refuge, nor any 
one to whom appeal can be made. Eliza kept 
up a continuous comforting and reassuring, 
but when I reminded her that our door had 
no locks, or, rather, no keys, for it was not 
the custom to lock army quarters, she said, 
" La, Miss Libbie, they won't tech you ; you 
dun wrote too many letters for 'em, and they'se 
got too many good vittels in your kitchen ever 
to 'sturb you." The infuriated men had to 
quiet down, for no response came from the 



The Negro as a Soldier 51 

commanding officer. They found out, I sup- 
pose, from the investigations of one acting as 
spy, and going to the rear of the quarters, that 
he had disappeared. They straggled off until 
their growling and muttering were lost in the 
barracks, where they went to bed. No steps 
were taken to punish them, and at any imagi- 
nary wrong, they might feel, from the success 
of this first attempt at insurrection, that it was 
safe to repeat the experiment. We women 
had little expectation but that the summer 
would be one of open rebellion against mili- 
tary rule. The commanding officer, though 
very retiring, was so courteous to all the 
women left in the garrison, that it was difficult 
to be angry with him for his failure to control 
the troops. 

Meanwhile my letters, on which I wrote 
every day, made mention of our frights and 
uncertainties. Each mail carried out letters 
from the women to the expedition, narrating 
their fears. We had not the slightest idea 
that there was a remedy. It took a long time 
for our letters to reach the expedition, and a 
correspondingly long time for replies ; but the 
descriptions of the night of mutiny brought 
the officers together in council, and the best 
disciplinarian of our regiment was immediate- 



52 The Boy General 



ly despatched to our relief. I knew but little 
of General Gibbs at that time ; my husband 
had served with him during the war, and 
valued his soldierly ability and sincere friend- 
ship. He had been terribly wounded in the 
Indian wars before the Civil War, and was 
really unfit for hard service, but too soldierly 
to be willing to remain at the rear. In a week 
after his arrival at our post there was a marked 
difference in the state of affairs. Out of the 
seemingly hopeless material, General Gibbs 
made soldiers who were used as guards over 
Government property through the worst of 
the Indian country, and whose courage was 
put to the test by frequent attacks, where they 
had to defend themselves as well as the sup- 
plies. 

Life in Kansas is full of surprises, but there 
was one that we would gladly have been 
spared. One quiet day I heard a great rum- 
bling in the direction of the plateau where we 
had ridden so much, as if many prairie-schoon- 
ers, heavily laden, were being spirited away 
by the stampede of mules. Next, our house 
began to rock, the bell to ring, and the pict- 
ures to vibrate on the wall. The mystery 
was solved when we ran to the gallery, and 
found the garrison rushing out of barrack? 



The Home of the Buffalo 53 



and quarters ; women and children ran to the 
parade-ground, all hatless, some half-dressed. 
Everybody stared at everyone else, turned 
pale, and gasped with fright. It was an earth- 
quake, sufficiently serious to shake our stone 
quarters and overturn the lighter articles, 
while farther down the gully the great stove 
at the sutler's store was tumbled over and the 
side of the building broken in by the shock. 
There was a deep fissure in the side of the 
bank, and the waters of the Big Blue were so 
agitated that the bed of the river twelve feet 
deep was plainly visible. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE HOME OF THE BUFFALO 

The buffaloes were in such enormous herds 
all about us in Kansas, that it seemed as if noth- 
ing could diminish their numbers. General 
Sherman told me that from the time we were 
there until the date of their almost total an- 
nihilation, 9,000,000, had been killed. After 
the Pacific railroads were completed the Ind- 
ian was partially subdued, and civilization 
spread along the routes of travel ; the frontiers- 



\ 



54 The Boy General 



men were more daring, and buffalo-hunting be- 
came a slaughter. The skin-hunters carried on 
a great traffic. Wherever the steamers stopped 
to wood along the Missouri the river was lined 
with heaps of hides, tied in bales ready for 
shipment. At the railroad stations in Kansas 
the same thing was true. Seven hundred and 
fifty thousand hides were shipped from one 
station about 1874. The skin-hunters used this 
plan : One of the number still-hunted, singling 
out his animal, and firing at long range so that 
the sound of the bullet did not disturb the 
herd. The smell of the blood drew perhaps 
twenty about the slain animal, and the hunter 
fired at them from behind the carcass, where he 
had hidden himself on coming up to his dead 
game. The rest of the party skinned the car- 
casses, and then proceeded to follow up the 
herd. One man, an expert, has thus shot over 
a hundred in a day. The bones were gathered 
and shipped East also. In this systematic kill- 
ing it is no wonder that now only a small herd 
in the Black Hills is reported to be in existence. 
While we were in Kansas the Indians were on 
the war-path, and men were not sufficiently 
daring in the pursuit of pelf to make hunting a 
business. The fearful destruction of buffaloes 
is a cause of national regret. 



The Home of the Buffalo 55 

All the wide plains about us for thousands of 
miles were stamped with the presence of the 
American bison. Innumerable proofs that they 
had long been monarchs in that great desert 
were encountered on our long marches, no 
matter in what direction we moved. No other 
animal impressed itself so on the land as to 
have its trail become a feature of the vast 
country. The most noticeable of these evi- 
dences of their presence were the interminable 
trails to the streams. Many a desert mariner, 
guiding his canvas-covered wagon across the 
trackless Western sea of prairie, has saved his 
life by following these unfailing guides. The 
ruts were sometimes in four parallel lines, and 
so deeply cut by the huge monsters that pa- 
tiently plodded through them, that we often 
had to check our horses to cross safely. The 
narrowness of these paths — for they were not 
much wider than the impression of a cart- 
wheel — was a surprise, until I saw how closely, 
how evenly, each hoof seemed to replace the 
other as the steady march went on. We 
learned very soon that we need not count on 
finding a stream near, by following the trail. 
It might be a journey of hours — for with a 
buffalo what was time ? He lived but to eat 
and drink. There was never the wild, exultant 



56 



The Boy General 



run of deer or antelope, which flew over the 
Plains apparently from joy and excess of life. 
The solemn, practical existence of the lumber- 
ing buffalo seemed to have begun before calf- 
dom was fairly over. 

It is true there was much fighting for lead- 
ership, and the heartless conduct toward the 
old bachelors of the herd is well known. When 
they showed signs of age, the stronger, younger 
bulls drove them out into a dreary existence, 
which was soon ended by the wolves that pur- 
sued the solitary tramps until exhaustion gave 
them up as prey. Occasionally several of the 
outcasts from the different herds met, and con- 
cluded to join forces and defy their joint ene- 
my, the wolves. With us, unaccustomed that 
summer to the habits of the buffalo, the sight 
of a single animal browsing contentedly, au- 
gured an approaching herd ; and great was our 
disappointment, when he was allowed to gallop 
off at sight of us and escape, to find that he 
was not the forerunner of a herd, but only an 
outcast. 

Many combats occurred among the bulls 
because two selected the same cow for a wife, 
and the painter who could have portrayed 
these monsters while they were raging with 
the fierceness of rivalry would have made his 



The Home of the Btiffalo 57 



mark. The heads bent forward to the ground 
in attempts to gore each other, the burning eye- 
balls, the desperate plunges which they made, 
apparently oblivious of their great weight, the 
turf torn with their maddened hoofs, the air 
thick with dust and bits of loosened sod, the 
temporary retreats of the contestants only to 
enable them to rush at one another with re- 
newed force, afforded the most magnificent 
example of jealous fury. Meanwhile, the 
cow over which this war was waged, quietly 
browsed near by. When domestic life began, 
the winner of the hard-fought battle became a 
good defender of his family. In the great herds 
the cows were always in the centre, and a cor- 
don of buDs surrounded them and their young, 
while outside them all were the pickets, which 
kept watch, and whose warnings were heeded 
at once if danger threatened. 

The circles, perhaps fifteen feet in circum- 
ference, that I saw were one of the mysteries 
of that strange land. When the officers told 
me that the rut was made by the buffalo moth- 
ers walking round and round to protect her 
newly born and sleeping calf from the wolves 
at night, I listened, only to smile incredulously. 
I had been so often " guyed " with ridiculous 
stories, that I did not believe the tale. In time, 



58 The Boy General 



however, I found that it was true, and I never 
came across these pathetic circles without a 
sentiment of deepest sympathy for the anxious 
mother whose vigilance kept up the ceaseless 
tramp during the long night. 

At first the bleaching bones of thousands of 
buffaloes were rather a melancholy sight, but 
I soon became as much accustomed to the 
ghastly sockets of an upturned skull as the 
field-mouse which ran in and out with food for 
her nest of little ones inside. The bones were 
often very old, for the bone collectors did not 
dare carry on their traffic at that dangerous 
time. The buffaloes were a singularly pitiful 
prey. They fought terribly when brought to 
bay, but when simply startled by the enemy, 
they ambled off as if saying, " This place is 
surely big enough for all of us ; we'll get out of 
the way/' Then when they were pursued, 
and the herd broke into a stampede, my heart 
was wrung with sympathy, especially if I 
chanced to spy calves. I hardly need say 
how careful the officers were not to shoot the 
cows. The reverence for motherhood is an 
instinct that is seldom absent from educated 
men. I know many instances in proof of 
the poet's words, " the bravest are the ten- 
derest." Our officers taught the coarsest 



The Home of the Buffalo 59 

soldier, in time, to regard maternity as some- 
thing sacred. 

It was only by the merest chance that I heard 
something of the gentleness of one of our offi- 
cers, whose brave heart ceased to beat on the 
battle-field of the Little Big Horn. In march- 
ing on a scouting expedition one day he went 
in advance a short distance with his sergeant, 
and when his ten men caught up with him he 
found that they had shot the mothers of some 
young antelopes. Captain Yates indignantly 
ordered the men to return to the young, and 
each take a baby antelope in his arms and care 
for it until they reached the post. For two 
days the men marched on, bearing the tender 
little things, cushioning them as best they 
could in their folded blouses. One man had 
twins to look out for, and as a baby antelope is 
all legs and head, this squirming collection of 
tiny hoofs and legs stuck out from all sides as 
the soldier guided his horse as best he could 
with one hand, the arm of which encircled the 
bleating little orphans. 

I also heard, only a year or so since, of an 
incident that happened perhaps fifteen years 
ago. A representative of the press was sent for 
scientific purposes with our regiment during 
the summer campaign. He told me that Gen- 



6o The Boy General 



eral Custer, riding at the head of the column, 
seeing the nest of a meadow-lark, with bird- 
lings in it, in the grass, guided his horse around 
it, and resumed the straight course again with- 
out saying a word or giving a direction. The 
whole command of many hundred cavalrymen 
made the same detour, each detachment com- 
ing up to the place where the preceding horse- 
men had turned out, and looking down into the 
nest to find the reason for the unusual depart- 
ure from the straight line of march. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE FIRST FIGHT OF THE SEVENTH CAVALRY 

The first fight of the Seventh Cavalry was at 
Fort Wallace on the road to Denver. In June, 
1867, a band of three hundred Cheyennes, un- 
der Roman Nose, attacked the stage-station 
near that fort, and ran off the stock. Elated 
with this success, they proceeded to Fort Wal- 
lace, that poor little group of log huts and mud 
cabins having apparently no power of resist- 
ance. Only the simplest devices could be re- 
sorted to for defence. The commissary stores 
and ammunition were partly protected by a 



First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry 61 

low wall of gunny - sacks filled with sand. 
There were no logs near enough, and no time 
if there had been, to build a stockade. But 
our splendid cavalry charged out as boldly as 
if they were leaving behind them reserve troops 
and a battery of artillery. They were met by 
the Indians, with lances poised and arrows on 
the string, coming on swiftly in overwhelming 
numbers. It was a hand-to-hand fight. Ro- 
man Nose was about to throw his javelin at 
one of our men, when the cavalryman gave 
him a sabre-thrust and with his Spencer rifle 
wounded the chief, and saw him fall forward 
on his horse. 

The post had been so short of men that a 
dozen negro soldiers, who had come with their 
wagon from an outpost for supplies, were 
placed near the garrison on picket duty. 
While the fight was going on, the two officers 
in command found themselves on the skirmish- 
line, and observed a wagon with four mules 
tearing out to the line of battle. It was filled 
with negroes, standing up, all firing in the di- 
rection of the Indians. The driver lashed the 
mules with his black-snake, and roared at them 
as they ran. When the skirmish-line was 
reached, the colored men leaped out and be- 
gan firing again. No one had ordered them to 



62 



The Boy General 



leave their picket-station, but they were de- 
termined that no soldiering should be carried 
on in which their valor was not proved. 

Poor Fort Wallace ! In another attack on 
the post, where several of our men were killed, 
there chanced to be some engineers stopping 
at the garrison, on their way to New Mexico. 
One of them, carrying a small camera, photo- 
graphed a sergeant lying on the battle-ground 
after the enemy had retreated. The body was 
gashed and pierced by twenty - three arrows. 
Everything combined to keep that little garri- 
son in a state of siege, and a gloomy pall hung 
over the beleaguered spot. 

As the stage-stations were one after another 
attacked, burned, the men murdered, and the 
stock driven off for a distance of three hundred 
miles, the difficulty of sending mail became 
almost insurmountable. Denver lay out there 
at the foot of the mountains, as isolated as if it 
had been a lone island in the Pacific Ocean. 
Whenever a coach went out with the mail, a 
second one was filled with soldiers and led the 
advance. The Seventh Cavalry endeavored to 
fortify some of the deserted stage-stations ; but 
the only means of defence consisted in burrow- 
ing underground. After the holes were dug, 
barely large enough for four men standing, and 



First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry 63 

a barrel of water and a week's provision, it was 
covered over with logs and turf, leaving an 
aperture for firing. Where the men had warn- 
ing, they could " stand off M many Indians, and 
save the horses in another dug-out adjacent. 

At one of the stage-stations nearest Denver 
a woman had endeavored to brave it out ; but 
her nerve deserted her at last, and she im- 
plored our officer to take her as far as he went 
on her way into the States. Her husband, try- 
ing to protect the stage company's interests, 
elected to remain, but begged that his wife 
might be taken away from the deadly peril. 
Our officer frankly said there was little chance 
that the stage would ever reach Fort Wallace. 
She replied that she had been frightened half 
to death all summer, and was sure to be mur- 
dered if she remained, and might as well die in 
the stage, as there was no chance for her at the 
station. 

Every revolution of the wheels brought 
them into greater danger. Three soldiers on 
the top of the stage kept a lookout on every 
side, while the officer inside sat with rifle in 
hand, looking from the door on either side the 
trail. Even with all this vigilance, the attack, 
when it came, was a surprise. The Indians 
had hidden in a wash-out near the road. Their 



64 The Boy General 



first shot fatally wounded one of the soldiers, 
who, dropping his gun, fell over the coach rail- 
ing, and with dying energy, half swung himself 
into the door of the stage, gasping out a mes- 
sage to his mother. Our officer replied that he 
would listen to the parting words later, helped 
the man to get upon the seat, and, without a 
preliminary, pushed the woman down into the 
deep body of the coach, bidding her, as she 
valued the small hope of life, not to let her- 
self be seen. Those familiar with Indian war- 
fare know well with what ferocity the savage 
fights, if he finds that a white woman is likely 
to fall into his hands. It is well known, also, 
that the squaws are ignored if the chiefs have 
a white woman in their power, and it brings 
a more fearful agony to her lot, for when the 
warriors are absent from the village, the 
squaws, wild with jealousy, heap cruelty and 
exhausting labor upon the helpless victim. 
All this the frontier woman knew and it need- 
ed no second command to keep her head on 
the floor of the coach. 

The instant the dying soldier had dropped 
his gun, the driver — ah, what cool heads those 
stage-drivers had ! — seized the weapon, thrust- 
ing his lines between his agile and muscular 
knees, inciting his mules, and every shot had a 



First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry 65 

deadly aim. The soldiers fired one volley, and 
then leaped to the ground as the officer sprang 
from the stage-door, and following beside the 
vehicle, continued to fire as they walked. The 
first two shots from the roof of the coach had 
killed two Indians hidden in the hole made by 
the wash-out. By that means our men got the 
upper hand of them, and they pursued at a 
greater distance. 

This running fire continued for five miles, 
when, fortunately, one of the stage - stations, 
where a few men had been posted, was 
reached. Here a halt was made, as the Ind- 
ians congregated on a bluff where they could 
watch safely. The coach was a wreck. The 
large lamps on either side of the driver's seat 
were shattered, and there were six bullet-holes 
between the roof and the wooden body of 
the coach. When the door of the stage was 
opened, the crouching woman lifted her face 
from the floor and was helped out. She looked 
about, and said, " I don't see any Indians yet." 
The officer told her that if she would take the 
trouble to look over on the bluff, she would find 
them on dress parade. Then she told him 
about her experience in the stage. The dying 
soldier had breathed his last soon after he fell 
into the coach, and all the five miles his dead 



66 The Boy General 

body kept slipping from the seat on to her. In 
vain she pushed it one side ; the violence with 
which the vehicle rocked from side to side, as 
the driver urged his animals to their utmost 
speed, made it impossible for her to protect 
herself from contact with the heavy corpse, that 
rolled about with the plunging of the coach. 

One troop of the Seventh Cavalry was left to 
garrison Fort Wallace, while the remainder of 
the regiment was scouting. The post was then 
about as dreary as any spot on earth. There 
were no trees; only the arid plain surrounded 
it, and the sirocco winds drove the sands of 
that desolate desert into the dug-outs that 
served for the habitation of officers and men. 
The supplies were of the worst description. It 
was impossible to get vegetables and there 
was, therefore, no preventing the soldier's 
scourge, scurvy, which the heat aggravated, 
inflaming the already burning flesh. Even the 
medical supplies were limited. None of the 
posts at that time were provided with decent 
food — that is, none beyond the railroad. The 
bacon issued to the soldiers was not only 
rancid, but was supplied by dishonest con- 
tractors, who slipped in any foreign substance 
they could, to make the weight come up to the 
required amount ; and thus the soldiers were 



First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry 67 

cheated out of the quantity due them, as well 
as imposed upon in the quality of their rations. 
It was the privilege of the enlisted men to 
make their complaints to the commanding 
officer, and some of them sent to ask the Gen- 
eral to come and see what frauds were being 
practised. I went with him, and saw a flat 
stone, the size of the slices of bacon as they 
were packed together, sandwiched between the 
layers. My husband was justly incensed, but 
could promise no immediate redress. The 
route of travel was so dangerous that it was 
necessary to detail a larger number of men to 
guard any train of supplies that attempted to 
reach those distant posts. The soldiers felt 
that it was an outrage that preparations for the 
arrival of so large a number of troops had not 
been perfected in the spring, before the whole 
country was in a state of siege. The supplies 
provided for those troops operating in the field 
or stationed at the posts had been sent out dur- 
ing the war. It was then 1867, and they had 
lain in the poor, ilL-protected adobe or dug-out 
storehouse all the intervening time — more 
than two years. At Forts Wallace and Hays 
there were no storehouses, and the flour and 
bacon were only protected by tarpaulins. Both 
became rancid and mouldy, and were at the 



68 The Boy General 



mercy of the rats and mice. A larger quantity 
of supplies was forwarded to that portion of 
the country the last year of the war than was 
needed for the volunteer troops sent out there, 
and consequently our Seventh Cavalry, scout- 
ing day and night all through that eventful 
summer, were compelled to subsist on the food 
already on hand. The desertions were unceas- 
ing. The nearer the troops approached the 
mountains, the more the men took themselves 
off to the mines. 

In April of that year no deaths had occurred 
at Fort Wallace, but by November there were 
sixty mounds outside the garrison, covering the 
brave hearts of soldiers who had either suc- 
cumbed to illness or been shot by Indians. It 
was a fearful mortality for a garrison of fewer 
than two hundred souls. If the soldiers, hun- 
gry for fresh meat, went out to shoot buffalo, 
the half of them mounted guard to protect 
those who literally took their lives in their 
hands to provide a few meals of wholesome 
food for themselves and their comrades. At 
one company post on the South Platte a troop 
of our Seventh Cavalry was stationed. In the 
mining excitement that ran so high in 1866 and 
1867, the Captain woke one morning to find that 
his first sergeant and forty out of sixty men had 



First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry 69 

decamped, with horses and equipments, for the 
mines. This left the handful of men in immi- 
nent peril from Indian assaults. 

Our regiment was now passing through its 
worst days. Constant scouting over the sun- 
baked, cactus-bedded Plains, by men who were 
learning by the severest lessons to inure them- 
selves to hardships, made terrible havoc in the 
ranks. The horses grew gaunt, and dragged 
their miserably fed bodies over the blistering 
trail. Here and there along the line a trooper 
walked beside his beast, wetting, when he could, 
the flesh that was raw from the chafing of the 
saddle. 

Insubordination among the men was the cer- 
tain consequence of the half-starved, discour- 
aged state they were in. One good fight would 
have put heart into them, for the hopelessness 
of following such a will-o'-the-wisp as the Ind- 
ians were that year, made them think their 
scouting did no good. In its early days the 
Seventh Cavalry was not the fine regiment it 
afterward became. 

There were troopers who had entered the 
service from a romantic love of adventure, with 
little idea of the stuff a man must be made of if 
he is hourly in peril, or continually called upon 
to endure privation. 



jo The Boy General 



The mines were evidently the great object 
that induced the soldier to enlist that year. 
The Eastern papers had wild accounts of the 
enormous yield in the Rocky Mountains, and 
free transportation by Government could be 
gained by enlisting. At that time, when the 
railroad was incomplete, and travel almost 
given up on account of danger to the stages ; 
when the telegraph, which now reaches the 
destination of the rogue with its warning far in 
advance of him, had not even been projected 
over the Plains — it was the easiest sort of 
escape for a man, for when once he reached 
the mines he was lost for years. 

In one night, while I was at Fort Hays, forty 
men deserted, and in so bold and deliberate a 
manner, taking arms, ammunition, horses, and 
quantities of food, that the officers were roused 
to action, for it looked as if not enough men 
would be left to protect the fort. A conspiracy 
was formed among the men, by which a third 
of the whole command planned to desert at 
one time. Had not their plotting been discov- 
ered, there would not have been a safe hour 
for those who remained, as the Indians lay in 
wait constantly. 

After weary marches, the regiment found it- 
self nearing Fort Wallace with a sense of relief, 



First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry 71 

feeling that they might recruit in that miserable 
but comparatively safe post. They were met 
by the news of the ravages of the cholera. No 
time could be worse for the soldiers to en- 
counter it. The long, trying campaign had 
fatigued and disheartened the command. Ex- 
haustion and semi-starvation made the men an 
easy prey. The climate, though so hot in sum- 
mer, had heretofore been in their favor, as the 
air was pure, and, in ordinary weather, bracing. 
But with cholera, even the high altitude was no 
protection. No one could account for the ap- 
pearance of the pestilence ; never before had 
it been known in so elevated a part of our 
country. There were those who attributed 
the scourge to the upturning of the earth in 
building the Kansas Pacific Railroad ; but the 
engineers had not even been able to prospect 
as far as Wallace on account of the Indians. 
An infantry regiment, on its march to New 
Mexico, halted at Fort Wallace, and even in 
their brief stay the men were stricken down. 

It was a hard fate for our Seventh Cavalry 
men. Their camp, outside the garrison, had 
no protection from the remorseless sun, and the 
poor fellows rolled on the hot earth in their 
small tents, without a cup of cold water or a 
morsel of decent food. The surgeons fought 



72 The Boy General 



day and night to stay the spread of the disease, 
but everything was against them. The ex- 
hausted soldiers, disheartened by long, hard, 
unsuccessful marching, had little desire to live 
when seized by the awful disease. 

Though the mails were so uncertain, the 
story of the illness and desperate condition of 
our regiment reached us, and many an exag- 
gerated tale came with the true ones. Day 
after day I sat on the gallery of the quarters 
watching for the first sign of the cavalryman 
who brought our mail. Doubtless he thought 
himself a winged Mercury. In reality, no snail 
ever crept so slowly. When he began his walk 
toward me, measuring his steps with military 
precision, a world of fretful impatience pos- 
sessed me. I wished with all my soul that I 
might pick up my skirts and fly over the grass, 
and snatch the parcel from his hand. When 
he finally reached the gallery, and swung him- 
self into position to salute, my heart thumped 
like the infantry drum. Day after day came 
the same pompous, maddening words : " I have 
the honor to report there are no letters for Mrs. 
Major - General George Armstrong Custer." 
Not caring at last whether the man saw the 
flush of disappointment, the choking breath, 
and the rising tears, I fled in the midst of his 



First Fight of the Seventh Cavalry 73 

slow announcement, to plunge my wretched 
head into my pillow. After days of such 
gloom, my leaden heart one morning quick- 
ened its beats at an unusual sound — the clank 
of a sabre on our gallery and with it the quick, 
springing steps of feet unlike the quiet infantry 
around us. The door, behind which I paced 
uneasily, opened, and with a flood of sunshine 
that poured in, came a vision far brighter than 
even the brilliant Kansas sun. There before 
me, blithe and buoyant, stood my husband ! 
What had I to ask more ? The General, as 
usual when happy, talked so rapidly that the 
words jumbled themselves into hopeless tan- 
gles, but my ears were keen enough to extract 
from the medley the fact that I was to return 
at once with him. 

Eliza, half crying, scolding as she did when 
overjoyed, vibrated between kitchen and par- 
lor, and finally fell to cooking, as a safety-valve 
for her overcharged spirits. The General or- 
dered everything she had in the house, deter- 
mined to have, for once in that summer, one 
" good, square meal," as the soldiers term it. 

When my reason was again enthroned, I be- 
gan to ask what good fortune had brought him. 
It seems that my husband, after reaching Fort 
Wallace, was overwhelmed with the discour- 



74 The Boy General 



agements that met him. His men dying about 
him, without his being able to afford them re- 
lief, was something impossible for him to face 
without a struggle, for their assistance. A 
greater danger than all was yet to be encoun- 
tered, if the right measures were not taken im- 
mediately. There was not enough food left to 
ration the men, and unless more came they 
would starve. If a scout was sent, his progress 
was so slow, hiding all day and travelling only 
by night, it would take so long that there might 
be men dying from hunger as well as cholera, 
before he could return with aid. And, besides 
this scarcity of food, the medical supplies were 
insufficient. The General, prompt always in 
action, suddenly determined to relieve the be- 
leaguered place by going himself for medicines 
and rations. He took a hundred men to guard 
the wagons, and in fifty-five hours they were at 
Fort Hays, one hundred and fifty miles distant. 
It was a terrible journey. 

My little valise was filled long before it was 
necessary for us to take the return train that 
evening. With the joy, the relief, the gratitude, 
of knowing that God had spared my husband 
through an Indian campaign, and averted from 
him the cholera ; and that I was to be 'given 
reprieve from days of anxiety, and nights of 



Battle of the Washita 75 



hideous dreams, and that I should be taken back 
to camp — could more be crowded into one day ? 
Was there room for a thought, save one of 
devout thankfulness, and such happiness as I 
find no words to describe ? 

There was in that summer of 1867 one long, 
perfect day — it is still mine, for time and for 
eternity. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BATTLE OF THE WASHITA 

The orders for moving toward the Indian 
village were issued on the evening of Novem- 
ber 22, 1868. It began to snow and our men 
stood round the camp-fire for their breakfast 
at five o'clock the next morning, the snow al- 
most up to their knees. The Seventh, consist- 
ing of nine hundred men, was to leave General 
Sheridan and the infantry, and all the extra 
wagons and supplies, and strike out into this 
blinding storm. General Sheridan, awake with 
anxiety at reveille, called out to ask what Gen- 
eral Custer thought about the snow and the 
storm. The reply was, " All the better for us ; 
we can move, the Indians cannot." The pack- 
ing was soon done, as every ounce of super- 



y6 The Boy General 



fluous baggage was left behind, and forward 
our brave fellows pushed into the dawn. 

The air was so filled with the fine snow that 
it was perilous to separate one's self even a 
short distance from the column. The Indian 
guides could not see any landmarks, and had 
it not been for the compass of the commanding 
officer, an advance would have been impos- 
sible. At night, camp was made in some tim- 
ber bordering a creek, and the snow still fell 
so fast that the officers themselves helped to 
shovel it away while the soldiers stretched the 
small amount of canvas that was spread. Fort- 
unately, even at that late season, fresh meat 
was secured for all the command, for in the 
underbrush of the streams one out of a group 
of benumbed buffaloes was easily killed. 

In crossing the Canadian River, the quick- 
sands, the floating snow and ice, were faced 
uncomplainingly, and the nine hundred wet 
soldiers started up the opposite side without 
a murmur. 

Finally the Indian trail, so long looked for, 
was struck, and the few wagons were ordered 
to halt ; and only such supplies as could be 
carried on the person or the horse, consisting 
of rations, forage, and a hundred rounds of 
ammunition for each trooper, were taken. 



Battle of the Washita 77 



The first hours of following the trail were 
terribly hard. Men and horses suffered for 
food, for from four in the morning till nine at 
night no halt could be made. Then by hiding 
under the deep banks of the stream, fires were 
lighted, and the men had coffee and the horses 
oats ; but no bugle sounded, no voice was 
raised, as the Indians might be dangerously 
near. The advance was taken up again with 
the Indian guides creeping stealthily along 
in front, tracing as best they could the route 
of their foes. The soldier was even deprived 
of his beloved pipe, for a spark might, at that 
moment, lose all which such superhuman efforts 
had been put forth to gain. 

After what seemed an interminable time, the 
ashes of a fire lately extinguished were dis-. 
covered ; then farther on a dog barked, and 
finally the long-looked-for Indian village was 
discovered by the cry of a baby. 

The rest of the night was spent in posting 
the command on different sides of the village, 
in snatching a brief sleep, stretched out on the 
snow, and in longing for daybreak. Excite- 
ment kept the ardent soldiers warm, and when 
the band put their cold lips to the still colder 
metal, aud struck up " Garryowen," the sol- 
diers' hearts were bursting with enthusiasm. 



yS The Boy General 



At the sound of the bugles blowing on the still 
morning air — the few spirited notes of the call 
to " charge " — in went the few hundred men 
as confidently as if there had been thousands of 
them, and a reserve corps at the rear. 

Often as this battle has been talked over be- 
fore me, I do not feel myself especially im- 
pressed with its military details ; womanlike, 
the cry of the Indian baby, the capture of a 
white woman, the storm that drenched our 
brave men, are all fresher in my memory, and 
come to my pen more readily, than the actual 
charging and fighting. 

Many of the squaws and children fought like 
the Indians, darting in and out and firing with 
cool aim from the opening of the tepees. Some 
of these squaws followed in the retreat, but 
there were some still prudent enough to re- 
main out of sight. While the fight was going 
on they sang dirges in a minor key, all be- 
lieving their own last hour had come. 

The attention of Captain Yates was attracted 
to the glittering of something bright in the 
underbrush. In a moment a shot from a pistol 
explained that the glistening object was the 
barrel of a pistol, and he was warned by his 
soldiers that it was a squaw who had aimed for 
him, and was preparing to fire again. He then 



Battle of the Washita 



79 



went round a short distance to investigate, and 
found a squaw standing in the stream, one leg 
broken, but holding her pappoose closely to 
her. She resisted most vigorously every at- 
tempt to capture her, though the agony of her 
shattered limb must have been extreme. When 
she found that her pistol was likely to be taken, 
she threw it in the stream, and fought fiercely 
again. At last they succeeded in getting her 
pappoose, and she surrendered. She was car- 
ried forward to a tepee, where our surgeon 
took charge of her. 

As soon as the warriors were driven out, 
" Romeo/! who spoke the dialect, was sent 
by the commanding officer to set the fears of 
the self-imprisoned women at rest, and they 
were then all gathered in some of the larger 
lodges. 

Before leaving the battle-ground it was 
necessary, if our troops hoped really to cripple 
the enemy and prevent further invasion, to 
destroy the property, for it was impossible to 
carry away much of what had been captured. 
The contents of the village were collected in 
heaps and burned. The ponies were crowded 
together and shot. It took three companies an 
hour and a half to kill the eight hundred ponies. 
This last duty was something the officers never 



80 The Boy General 



forgot. Nothing but the exigencies of war 
could have driven them to it. But they could 
not be driven away in the deep snow, and with 
so small a command it was impossible to spare 
men to attempt the rescue of the poor, dumb, 
helpless beasts. 

In order to escape from the situation, which 
was most threatening, for the Indians were 
assembling on the bluffs overlooking the com- 
mand, General Custer put on a brave front, 
and ordered the band to play " Garryowen," 
and the colors to be unfurled ; the skirmishers 
were sent on in advance, and the command set 
out in the direction of the other villages. The 
Indians, perceiving not only the determined 
advance, but appreciating that every sign of 
past victory was apparent, supposed the tri- 
umphant troops were about to march on the 
villages below, and they fled before the column. 
After dark the order to countermarch was 
given, and as rapidly as possible the tired 
troopers rode back to the train of supplies that 
had been endeavoring for days to make its 
way to the regiment 



The Boy General in the Northwest 81 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BOY GENERAL IN THE NORTHWEST 

We remained in Kansas five years, during 
which time I was the only officer's wife who 
always followed the regiment. We were then 
ordered, with the regiment, to Kentucky. After 
being there two years, we went to Dakota in 
the spring of 1873. 

When orders came for the Seventh Cavalry 
to go into the field again, General Custer was 
delighted. The regiment was stationed in var- 
ious parts of the South, on the very disagree- 
able duty of breaking up illicit distilleries and 
suppressing the Ku-Klux. Fortunately for us, 
being in Kentucky, we knew very little of this 
service. It seemed an unsoldierly life, for a 
true cavalryman feels that a life in the saddle on 
the free open plain is his legitimate existence. 

Not an hour elapsed after the official docu- 
ment announcing our change of station had 
arrived, before our house was torn up. In the 
confusion I managed to retire to a corner with 
an atlas, and on the sly look up the territory to 
which we were going. I hardly liked to own 



82 The Boy General 



that 1 had forgotten its location. When my 
finger traced our route from Kentucky almost 
up to the border of the British possessions, it 
seemed as if we were going to Lapland. 

From the first days of our marriage, General 
Custer celebrated every order to move with 
wild demonstrations of joy. His exuberance 
of spirits always found expression in some boy- 
ish pranks, before he could set to work seriously 
to prepare for duty. As soon as the officer an- 
nouncing the order to move had disappeared, 
all sorts of hilarity began. I had learned to 
take up a safe position on top of the table ; that 
is, if I had not already been placed there as a 
spectator. The most disastrous result of the 
proceedings was possibly a broken chair, which 
the master of ceremonies would crash, and, 
perhaps, throw into the kitchen by way of in- 
forming the cook that good news had come. 
We had so few household effects that it was 
something of a loss when we chanced to be in 
a country where they could not be replaced. I 
can see Eliza's woolly head now, as she thrust it 
through the door to reprimand her master, and 
say, " Chairs don't grow on trees in these yere 
parts, Gen'l." As for me, I was tossed about 
the room, and all sorts of jokes were played 
upon me before the frolic was ended. 



The Boy General in the Northwest 83 

I know that it would surprise a well-regulat- 
ed mover to see what short work it was for us 
to prepare for our journeys. We began by 
having a supply of gunny-sacks and hay brought 
in from the stables. The saddler appeared, and 
all our old traps were once more tied and sewed 
up. The kitchen utensils were plunged into 
barrels, generally left uncovered in the hurry ; 
rolls of bedding encased in waterproof cloth or 
canvas were strapped and roped, and the few 
pictures and books were crowded into chests 
and boxes. When these possessions were loaded 
upon the wagon, at the last moment there always 
appeared the cook's bedding to surmount the 
motley pile. Her property was invariably tied 
up in a flaming quilt representing souvenirs of 
her friends* dresses. She followed that last in- 
stalment with anxious eyes, and, true to her 
early training, grasped her red bandanna, con- 
taining a few last things, while the satchel she 
scorned to use hung empty on her arm. 

Steamers were ready for us at Memphis, and 
we went thither by rail to embark. When the 
regiment was gathered together, after a separa- 
tion of two years, there were hearty greetings, 
and exchanges of troublous or droll experiences ; 
thankful to be reunited, we entered again, heart 
and soul, into the minutest detail of one another's 



84 The Boy General 



lives. We went into camp for a few days on 
the outskirts of Memphis, and exchanged hos- 
pitalities with the citizens. The bachelors found 
an elysium in the society of many pretty girls, 
and love-making went on in parlors or in the 
open air as they rode in the warm spring weather 
to and from our camp. Three steamers were 
at last loaded and we went on to Cairo, where 
we found the trains prepared to take us into 
Dakota. 

The regiment was never up to its maximum 
of twelve hundred, but there may have been 
eight or nine hundred soldiers and as many 
horses. The property of the companies — sad- 
dles, equipments, arms, ammunition, and forage 
— together with the personal luggage of the 
officers, made the trains very heavy, and we 
travelled slowly. We were a week or more on 
the route. Our days were varied by the long 
stops necessary to water the horses, and occa- 
sionally to take them out of the cars for exer- 
cise. My husband and I always went on these 
occasions to loose the dogs and have a frolic 
and a little visit with our own horses. The 
youth and gamins of the village gathered about 
us as if we had been some travelling show. 
While on the journey one of our family had a 
birthday. This was always a day of frolic and 



The Boy General in the Northwest 85 

fun, and even when we were on the extreme 
frontier, presents were sent for into the States, 
and we had a little dinner and a birthday-cake. 
This birthday that came during the journey 
did not leave utterly without resources the 
minds of those whose ingenuity was quickened 
by affection. The train was delayed that day 
for a long time, and our colored cook, Mary, 
successor to Eliza who had married and gone 
South, determined on a feast. She slyly took 
a basket and filled it at the shops in the village 
street. She had already made friends with 
a woman who had a little cabin tucked in be- 
tween the rails and the embankment, and there 
the never-absent "eureka" coffee-pot was pro- 
duced and most delicious coffee dripped. Re- 
turning to the car-stove, which she had dis- 
covered was filled with a bed of coals, she broiled 
us a steak, and baked some potatoes. The 
General and I were made to sit down opposite 
each other in one of the compartments. A board 
was brought covered with a clean towel, and we 
did table-legs to this impromptu table. We 
did not dare move for fear we should overturn 
the laden board. For dessert, a large plate of 
macaroons was brought out as a surprise. Mary 
told me, with great glee, how she had seen the 
General prowling in the bakers* shops to buy 



86 The Boy General 



them, and described the train of small boys who 
followed him when he came back with his 
brown paper parcel. " Miss Libby," she said, 
" they thought a sure enough gen'l always went 
on horseback and carried his sword in his 
hand." 

We were so hungry we scarcely realized that 
we were not the embodiment of picturesque 
grace. No one could be otherwise than awk- 
ward in trying to cut food on such an uncertain 
base, while Mary had taken the last scrap of 
dignity away from the General's appearance by 
enveloping him in a kitchen-towel as a substi- 
tute for a napkin. With their usual indepen- 
dence, troops of curious citizens stalked through 
the car to stare at my husband. We went on 
eating calmly, unconscious that they thought 
the picture hardly in keeping with their pre- 
conceived ideas of a commanding officer. 
When we thanked Mary for our feast, her face 
beamed with a combination of joy at our delight 
and heat from the stove. When she lifted up 
our frugal board and set us free, we had a long 
stroll, talking over other birthdays and those 
yet to come, until the train was ready to start. 



An April Blizzard 87 



CHAPTER X 

AN APRIL BLIZZARD 

After so many days in the car, we were 
glad to stop on an open plain about a mile 
from the town of Yankton, where the road 
ended. 

The three chief considerations for a camp 
are wood, water, and good ground. The latter 
we had, but we were at some distance from 
the water, and neither trees nor brushwood 
were in sight. 

The long trains were unloaded and the 
plains about us seemed to swarm with men 
* and horses. I was helped down from the 
Pullman car, where inlaid woods, mirrors, and 
plush surrounded us, to the ground, perfectly 
bare of every earthly comfort. The other 
ladies of the regiment went on to the hotel in 
the town. The General suggested that I should 
go with them, but I had been in camp so many 
summers it was not a formidable matter for 
me to remain, and fortunately for what fol- 
lowed I did so. The household belongings 
were gathered together. A family of new 



88 The Boy General 



puppies, some half-grown dogs, the cages of 
mocking-birds and canaries, were all corralled 
safely in a little stockade made of chests and 
trunks, and we set ourselves about making a 
temporary home. The General and a number 
of soldiers were obliged to go at once to lay 
out the main camp and assign the companies 
to their places. Later on our tents were to be 
pitched. While I sat on a chest waiting, the 
air grew suddenly chilly, the bright sun of 
the morning disappeared, and the rain began 
to fall. Had we been accustomed to the cli- 
mate we should have known that these changes 
were the precursors of a snow-storm. 

When we left Memphis, we wore muslin 
gowns and were then uncomfortably warm ; it 
seemed impossible that even so far north there 
could be winter in the middle of April. On 
the bluffs beyond us was a signal-station, but 
they sent us no warning. Each new country 
has its peculiarities, and it seemed we had 
reached one where all the others were out- 
done. As the afternoon of that first day ad- 
vanced, the wind blew colder, and I found my- 
self eying with envy a little half-finished cabin 
without an enclosure, standing by itself. Years 
of encountering the winds of Kansas, when 
our tents were torn and blown down so often, 



An April Blizzard 89 

had taught me to appreciate any kind of 
house, even though it were built upon the sand 
as this one was. A dug-out, which the tor- 
nado swept over, but could not harm, was even 
more of a treasure. The change of climate 
from the extreme south to the far north had 
made a number of the men ill, and even the 
superb health of the General had suffered. He 
continued to superintend the camp, however, 
though I begged him from time to time to 
give up. I felt sure he needed a shelter and 
some comfort at once, so I took courage to 
plan for myself. Before this I had always 
waited, as the General preferred to prepare 
everything for me. After he had consented 
that we should try for the little house, some of 
the kind-hearted soldiers found the owner in a 
distant cabin, and he rented it to us for a few 
days. The place was equal to a palace to me. 
There was no plastering, and the house seemed 
hardly weather-proof. It had a floor, however, 
and an upper story divided off by beams ; over 
these Mary and I stretched blankets and shawls 
and so made two rooms. It did not take long 
to settle our few things, and when wood and 
water were brought from a distance we were 
quite ready for housekeeping, except that we 
lacked a stove and some supplies. Mary 



90 The Boy General 



walked into the town to get a small cooking- 
stove, but she could not induce the merchant 
to bring it out that night. She was thoughtful 
enough to take along a basket and brought 
with her a little marketing. On her return, the 
snow was falling so fast it was with difficulty 
that she found her way. 

Meanwhile the General had returned com- 
pletely exhausted and very ill. I sent for the 
surgeon, who, like all of his profession in the 
army, came promptly. He gave me some 
powerful medicine to administer every hour, 
and forbade the General to leave his bed. It 
was growing dark, and we were in the midst 
of a Dakota blizzard. The snow was so fine 
that it penetrated the smallest cracks, and soon 
we found white lines appearing all around us, 
where the roof joined the walls, on the win- 
dows and under the doors. Outside, the air 
was so thick with the whirling, tiny particles 
that it was almost impossible to see one's hand 
held out before one. The snow was fluffy and 
thick, like wool, and fell so rapidly, and seem- 
ingly from all directions, that it gave me a 
feeling of suffocation. Mary was not easily 
discouraged, and piling a few light fagots out- 
side the door, she tried to light a fire. The 
wind and the muffling snow put out every lit- 



An April Blizzard 



9i 



tie blaze that started, however, and so, giving 
it up, she went into the house and found the 
luncheon-basket we had brought from the car, 
in which remained some sandwiches, and these 
composed our supper. 

The night had almost settled down upon 
us when the Adjutant came for orders. Know- 
ing the scarcity of fuel and the danger to the 
horses from exposure to the rigor of such 
weather after their removal from a warm cli- 
mate, the General ordered the breaking of 
camp. All the soldiers were directed to take 
their horses and go into Yankton, and ask the 
citizens to give them shelter in their homes, 
cow-sheds, and stables. In a short time the 
camp was nearly deserted, only the laundress- 
es, two or three officers, and a few dismounted 
soldiers remaining. The towns-people, true to 
the unvarying Western hospitality, gave every- 
thing they could to the use of the regiment ; 
the officers found places in the hotels. The 
sounds of the hoofs of the hurrying horses 
flying by our cabin on their way to the town 
had hardly died out before the black night 
closed in and left us alone on that wide, 
deserted plain. The servants, Mary and Ham, 
did what they could to make the room below- 
stairs comfortable by stopping the cracks and 



92 The Boy General 



barricading the frail door. The thirty-six 
hours of our imprisonment there seems now'a 
frightful nightmare. The wind grew higher 
and higher, and shrieked about the little house 
dismally. It was built without a foundation, 
and was so rickety it seemed as it rocked in a 
great gust of wind that it surely would be un- 
roofed or overturned. The General was too 
ill for me to venture to find my usual comfort 
from his reassuring voice. I dressed in my 
heaviest gown and jacket, and remained under 
the blankets as much as I could to keep warm. 
Occasionally I crept out to shake off the snow 
from the counterpane. I hardly dared take 
the little phial in my benumbed fingers to drop 
the precious medicine for fear it would fall. I 
realized, as the night advanced, that we were 
as isolated from the town, and even the camp, 
not a mile distant, as if we had been on an isl- 
and in the river. The doctor had intended to 
return to us, but his serious face and impres- 
sive injunctions made me certain that he con- 
sidered the life of the General dependent on 
the medicine being regularly given. 

During the night I was startled by hearing 
a dull sound, as of something falling heavily. 
Flying down the stairs, I found the servants 
prying open the frozen and snow-packed door, 



An April Blizzard 



93 



to admit a half dozen soldiers who, becoming 
bewildered by the snow, had been saved by 
the faint light we had placed in the window. 
After that several came, and two were badly 
frozen. We were in despair of finding any 
way of warming them, as there was no bedding, 
and, of course, no fire, until I remembered the 
carpets which were sewed up in bundles and 
heaped in one corner, where the boxes were, 
and which we were not to use until the gar- 
rison was reached. Spreading them out, we 
had enough to roll up each wanderer as he 
came. The frozen men were in so exhausted 
a condition that they required immediate at- 
tention. Their sufferings were intense, and I 
could not forgive myself for not having some- 
thing with which to revive them. The Gen- 
eral never tasted liquor, and we were both so 
well always we did not even keep it for use 
in case of sickness. 

I saw symptoms of that deadly stupor which 
is the sure precursor of freezing, when I re- 
membered a bottle of alcohol which had been 
brought for the spirit-lamps. Mary hated to 
use the only means by which we could make 
coffee for ourselves, but the groans and hag- 
gard faces of the men won her over, and we 
saw them revive under the influence of the fiery 



The Boy General 



liquid. Poor fellows! They afterward lost 
their feet, and some of their fingers had also 
to be amputated. The first soldier who had 
reached us explained that they had all attempt- 
ed to find their way to town, and the storm 
had completely overcome them. Fortunately 
one had clung to a bag of hard-tack, which 
was all they had had to eat. 

At last the day came, but so darkened by the 
snow it seemed rather a twilight. The drifts 
were on three sides of us like a wall. The long 
hours dragged themselves away, leaving thfe 
General too weak to rise, and in great need of 
hot, nourishing food. I grew more and more 
terrified at our utterly desolate condition and 
his continued illness. He was too ill, and I too 
anxious, to eat the fragments that remained in 
the luncheon-basket. The snow continued to 
come down in great swirling sheets, while the 
wind shook the loose window-casings and some- 
times broke in the door. When night came 
again and the cold increased, I believed that our 
hours were numbered. I missed the voice of 
the courageous Mary, for she had sunk down 
in a corner exhausted for want of sleep, while 
Ham had been completely demoralized from 
the first. Occasionally I melted a little place 
pn the frozen window-pane, and saw that the 



An April Blizzard 



95 



drifts were almost level with the upper win- 
dows on either side, but that the wind had 
swept a clear space before the door. During 
the night the sound of the tramping of many 
feet rose above the roar of the storm. A great 
drove of mules rushed up to the sheltered side 
of the house. Their brays had a sound of ter- 
ror as they pushed, kicked, and crowded them- 
selves against our little cabin. For a time 
they huddled together, hoping for warmth, 
and then despairing, they made a mad rush 
away, and were soon lost in the white wall of 
snow beyond. All night long the neigh of a 
distressed horse, almost human in its appeal, 
came to us at intervals. The door was pried 
open once, thinking it might be some suffering 
fellow-creacure in distress. The strange, wild 
eyes of the horse peering in for help, haunted 
me long afterward. Occasionally a lost dog 
lifted up a howl of distress under our window. 
When the night was nearly spent I sprang 
again to the window with a new horror, for no 
one, until he hears it for himself, can realize 
what varied sounds animals make in the ex- 
citement of peril. A drove of hogs, squealing 
and grunting, were pushing against the house, 
and the door, which had withstood so much, 
had to be held to keep it from being broken in. 



g6 The Boy General 



It was almost unbearable to hear the groans 
of the soldiers over their swollen and painful 
feet, and know that we could do nothing to 
ease them. Every minute seemed a day ; 
every hour a year. When daylight came I 
dropped into an exhausted slumber, and was 
awakened by Mary standing over our bed with 
a tray of hot breakfast. I asked if help had 
come, and finding it had not, of course, I could 
not understand the smoking food. She told 
me that feeling the necessity of the General's 
eating, it had come to her in the night-watch- 
es that she would cut up the large candles she 
had brought along, and try if she could cook 
over the many short pieces placed close to- 
gether, so as to make a large flame. The re- 
sult was hot coffee and some bits of the steak 
she had brought from town, fried with a few 
slices of potatoes. 

The breakfast revived the General so much 
that he began to make light of danger. The 
snow had ceased to fall, but for all that it 
still seemed that we were castaways, hidden 
under the drifts that nearly surrounded us. 
Help was near at hand, however, at even this 
darkest hour. A knock at the door, and the 
cheery voices of men came up to our ears. 
Some citizens of Yankton had found their way 



An April Blizzard 



97 



to our relief, and the officers, who neither knew 
the way nor how to travel over such a country, 
had gladly followed. They told us that they 
had made several attempts to get to us, but the 
snow was so soft and light that they could 
make no headway. They floundered and sank 
down almost out of sight, even in the streets 
of the town. Of course no horse could travel, 
but they told me of their intense anxiety, and 
said that, fearing I might be in need of immedi- 
ate help, they had dragged a cutter over the 
drifts, which now had a crust of ice formed 
from the sleet and the moisture of the damp 
night-air. Of course I declined to go without 
the General, but I was deeply touched by their 
thought of me. I made some excuse to go 
upstairs, where, with my head buried in the 
shawl partition, I tried to smother the sobs 
that had been suppressed during the terrors of 
our desolation. Here the General found me, 
and though comforting me by tender words, 
he still reminded me that he would not like 
any one to know that I had lost my pluck 
when all the danger I had passed through was 
ended. 



98 The Boy General 



CHAPTER XI 

ON TO FORT LINCOLN 

When the day came for us to begin our 
march, the sun shone and the towns-people 
wished us good-luck with their good-by. 

The length of each day's march varied ac- 
cording to the streams on which we relied for 
water, or the arrival of the boat. The steamer 
that carried the forage for the horses and the 
supplies for the command, was tied up to the 
river-bank every night, as near to us as was 
possible. The laundresses and ladies of the 
regiment were on board, except the General's 
sister, Margaret, who made her first march 
with her husband, riding all the way on horse- 
back. As usual, I rode beside the General. 
Our first few days were pleasant, and we began 
at once to enjoy the plover. The land was so 
covered with them that the hunters shot them 
with all sorts of arms. We counted eighty 
birds in the gunny-sack that three of the sol- 
diers brought in. Fortunately there were sev- 
eral shot-guns in the possession of our family, 
and the little things, therefore, were not torn 



On to Fort Lincoln 99 



to pieces, but could be broiled over the coals 
of the camp-fire. They were so plump that 
their legs were like tiny points coming from 
beneath the rounded outline that swept the 
grass as they walked. No butter was needed 
in cooking them, for they were very fat. How 
good the plover and sandwiches tasted, while 
we quenched our thirst with cold coffee or tea ! 
Since we were named " The Great Grab Mess," 
we all dared to reach over and help ourselves, 
and the one most agile and with the longest 
arms was the best fed. 

No great ceremony is to be expected when 
one rises before four, and takes a hurried break- 
fast by the light of a tallow-candle; the sol- 
diers waiting outside to take down the tent, the 
servants hastily and suggestively rattling the 
kettles and gridiron as they packed them, 
made it an irresistible temptation for one hun- 
gry to " grab." 

We had a very satisfactory little cook-stove. 
It began its career with legs, but the wind used 
to lift it up from the ground with such violence 
it was finally dismembered, and afterward 
placed flat on the ground. Being of sheet-iron 
it cooled quickly, was very light, and could be 
put in the wagon in a few moments after the 
morning meal was cooked. When we came 



ioo The Boy General 



out from breakfast the wagon stood near, partly 
packed, and bristling with kitchen utensils ; 
buckets and baskets tied outside the cover, axe 
and spade lashed to the side, while the little 
stove looked out from the end. The mess-chest 
stood open on the ground to receive the dishes 
we had used. At a given signal the dining, 
tent went down with all those along the line, 
and they were stowed away in the wagons in 
an incredibly short time. The wagon-train 
then drew out and formed in order at the rear 
of the column. 

At the bugle-call, " Boots and Saddles," each 
soldier mounted and took his place in line, 
all riding two abreast. First came the General 
and his staff, with whom Sister Margaret and I 
were permitted to ride ; the private orderlies 
and head-quarters detail rode in our rear ; and 
then came the companies according to the 
places assigned them for the day ; finally the 
wagon-train, with the rear-guardo We made a 
long cavalcade that stretched over a great dis- 
tance. When we reached some high bluff we 
never tired of watching the command advanc- 
ing, with the long line of supply wagons, with 
their white covers, winding around bends in the 
road and climbing over the hills. Every day 
the breaking of camp went more smoothly and 



On to Fort Lincoln 101 



quickly, until, as the days advanced, the General 
used to call me to his side to notice by his 
watch how few moments it took after the tents 
were ordered down to set the whole machinery 
for the march in motion ; and I remember the 
regiment grew so skilful in preparation that in 
one campaign the hour for starting never varied 
five minutes during the whole summer. 

The column was always halted once during 
the day's march to water the horses, then the 
luncheons were brought forth. 

When the stream was narrow, and the hun- 
dreds of horses had to be ranged along its 
banks to be watered, there was time for a nap. 
I soon acquired the General's habit of sleeping 
readily. He would throw himself down any- 
where and fall asleep instantly, even with the sun 
beating on his head. It only takes a little train- 
ing to learn to sleep without a pillow on un- 
even ground and without shade. I learned, the 
moment I was helped out of the saddle, to drop 
upon the grass and lose myself in a twinkling. 
I think I never got quite over wishing for the 
shade of a tree ; but there was often a little 
strip of shadow on one side of the travelling 
wagon, which was always near us on the jour- 
ney. I was not above selfishly appropriating 
the space under the wagon, if it had not been 



102 The Boy General 



taken by somebody else. Even then I had to 
dislodge a whole collection of dogs, who soon 
find the best places for their comfort. 

We had a citizen-guide with us, who, having 
been long in the country, knew the streams, and 
the General and I, following his instructions, 
often rode in advance as we neared the night's 
camp. It was always a mild excitement and 
new pleasure to select camp. The General de- 
lighted to unsaddle his favorite horse, Dandy, 
and turn him loose, for his attachment was so 
strong he never grazed far from us. He was 
not even tethered, and after giving himself the 
luxury of a roll in the grass, he ate his dinner 
of oats, and browsed about the tent, as tame as a 
kitten. He whinnied when my husband patted 
his sleek neck, and looked jealously at the dogs 
when they all followed us into the tent. 

After tramping down the grass, to prevent 
the fire from spreading, my husband would 
carry dry sticks and underbrush, and place them 
against a fallen tree. That made an admirable 
back-log, and in a little while we had a glorious 
fire, the General having a peculiar gift of start- 
ing aflame on the wildest day. The next thing 
was to throw himself down on the sod, cover 
his eyes with his white felt hat, and be sound 
asleep in no time. The dogs came at once to 



On to Fort Lincoln 103 



lie beside him. I have seen them stretched at 
his back and curled around his head, while the 
nose and paws of one rested on his breast. And 
yet he was quite unconscious of their crowding. 
They growled and scrambled for the best place, 
but he slept placidly through it all. 

When the command arrived, the guidons 
pointed out the location for each company ; the 
horses were unsaddled and picketed out ; the 
wagons unloaded and the tents pitched. The 
hewing of wood and the hauling of water came 
next, and after the cook-fires were lighted, the 
air was full of savory odors of the soldiers' din- 
ner. After I had changed my riding-habit for 
my one other gown, I came out to join the Gen- 
eral under the tent-fly, where he lay alternately 
watching the scene and reading one of his well- 
thumbed books. I always had sewing — either 
a bit of needle-work that was destined to make 
our garrison quarters more attractive, or more 
often, some necessary stitches to take in our 
hard-worn clothes. As we sat there it would 
have been difficult for a stranger to believe that 
it was merely the home of a day. 

Our camps along the river were much alike, 
and each day when we entered the tent our few 
things were placed exactly as they were the day 
before. The only articles of furniture we had 



104 The Boy General 



with us were two folding-chairs, a bed, a wash- 
bowl, with bucket and tin dipper, and a little 
mirror. This last, fastened to the tent-pole, 
swayed to and fro with the never-ceasing wind, 
and made it a superfluous luxury, for we learned 
to dress without it. The camp-chairs were a 
great comfort; they were made by a soldier out 
of oak, with leather backs, seats, and arms, the 
latter so arranged with straps and buckles that 
one could recline or sit upright at will. 

An ineffaceable picture remains with me even 
now of those lovely camps, as we dreamily 
watched them by the fading light of the after- 
noon. The General and I used to think there 
was no bit of color equal to the delicate blue 
line of smoke which rose from the camp-fire, 
where the soldiers' suppers were being cooked. 
The effect of light and shade, and the varying 
tints of that perfect sky, were a great delight to 
him. The mellow air brought us sounds that 
had become dear by long and happy association 
— the low notes of the bugle in the hands of the 
musician practising the calls ; the click of the 
currycomb as the soldiers groomed their horses ; 
the whistle or song of a happy trooper. And 
even the irrepressible accordeon at that dis- 
tance made a melody. It used to amuse us to 
find with what persistent ingenuity the soldiers 



On to Fort Lincoln 105 



smuggled that melancholy instrument. No 
matter how limited the transportation, after a 
few days' march it was brought out from a roll 
of blankets, or the teamster who had been 
bribed to keep it under the seat, produced the 
prized possession. The bay of the hounds was 
always music to the General. 

Mingling with the melodies of the negro ser- 
vants, as they swung the blacking-brushes at the 
rear of the tents, were the buoyant voices of the 
officers lying under the tent-flies, smoking the 
consoling pipe. The twilight almost always 
found many of us gathered together, some idling 
on the grass in front of the camp-fire, or loung- 
ing on the buffalo robes. The one with the best 
voice sang, while all joined in the chorus. 

We all had much patience in listening to 
what must necessarily be " twice-told tales," for 
it would have taken the author of " The Ara- 
bian Nights " to supply fresh anecdotes for peo- 
ple who had been so many years together. 
These stories usually varied somewhat from 
time to time, and the more Munchausen-like 
they became the more attentive was the audi- 
ence. 

The territories are settled by people who live 
an intense, exaggerated sort of existence, and 
nothing tame attracts them. In order to com- 



to6 The Boy General 



pel a listener, I myself fell into the habit of add- 
ing a cipher or two to stories that had been first 
told in the States with moderate numbers. 

The teamsters mess together on the march as 
the officers do, with rarely more than four or 
five in the circle. One of the number buys the 
supplies, takes charge of the rations, and keeps 
the accounts. The sum of expenses is divided 
at the end of the month, and each pays his por- 
tion. They take turns in doing the cooking, 
which, being necessarily simple, gives each a 
share of the labor. Sometimes we found a 
more ambitious member of the mess endeavor- 
ing to rise superior to the tiresome hard-tack ; 
he had bared his brawny arms and was mixing 
biscuit on the tail-board of the wagon, letdown 
for the purpose. He whistled away as he mould- 
ed the dough with his horny hands, and it would 
have seemed that he had a Delmonico supper 
to anticipate. 

We had not left Yankton far behind us before 
we were surprised to see one of its most hos- 
pitable citizens drive up ; he acknowledged 
that he had missed us, and described the tame- 
ness of life after the departure of the cavalry as 
something quite past endurance. 

The weather changed, and we began our 
march with a dull, gray morning and stinging 



On to Fort Lincoln 107 



cold. The General wound me up in all the out- 
side wraps I had until I was a shapeless mass of 
fur and wool as I sat in the saddle. We could 
talk but little to each other, for the wind cut our 
faces and stiffened the flesh until it ached. My 
hands became too numb to hold my horse, so I 
gave him his own way. As we rode along like 
automatons, I was keeping my spirits up with 
the thought of the camp we should make in the 
underbrush of a sheltered valley by some stream, 
and the coming camp-fire rose brightly in my 
imagination. We went slowly, as the usual time 
a cavalry command makes is barely four miles 
an hour. It was a discouraging spot where we 
finally halted; it was on a stream, but the ice 
was thick along the edges, and all we could see 
was the opposite bank, about thirty feet high, 
so frozen over that it looked like a wall of solid 
ice. It was difficult to pitch the tent, for the 
wind twisted and tore the canvas ; the ground 
was already so frozen that it took a long time 
to drive in the iron pins by which the ropes 
holding the tents are secured. All the tying 
and pinning of the opening was of little avail, 
for the wind twisted off the tapes and flung the 
great brass pins I had brought on purpose for 
canvas far and wide. 

No camp-fire would burn, of course, in such 



io8 The Boy General 



a gale, but I remembered thankfully the Sibley 
stove that we always carried. The saddler had 
cut a hole in the roof of the tent for the pipe, 
and fastened zinc around it to make it safe from 
fire. I shall never think about a Sibley stove 
without gratitude, nor cease to wonder how so 
simple an invention can be the means of such 
comfort. It is only a cone of sheet-iron, open 
at the top and bottom ; the broader part rests 
on the ground, while the little pipe fits on the 
top. The wood is put through a door cut 
in the side ; only billets can be used, for the 
door is small. It requires almost constant at- 
tention to keep the insatiable little thing filled. 
The stove is so light that, in marching, the pipe 
is removed and a rope run through the open- 
ings, which enables it to be tied underneath the 
wagon, beside the bucket which is always sus- 
pended there to be used to water the horses. 

The General was busy in the Adjutant's tent, 
so I sent for the sergeant, who was our facto- 
tum, and asked him to hunt up the Sibley stove, 
but he told me it had been forgotten, and so I 
crept into bed to keep warm. 



Camping Among the Sioux 109 



CHAPTER XII 

CAMPING AMONG THE SIOUX 

Our march to Fort Lincoln took us through 
the grounds set apart by the Government for 
the use of the Sioux Indians at peace with our 
country. We had not made much progress 
before we began to see their graves. They do 
not bury their dead, but place them on boards 
lashed to the limbs of trees, or on high plat- 
forms raised from the ground by four poles per- 
haps twenty feet. The body is wound round 
and round with clothing or blankets, like a 
mummy, and inside the layers are placed fire- 
arms, tobacco, and jerked beef, to supply them 
on the imaginary journey to the happy hunt- 
ing-grounds. In the early morning, when it 
was not quite light, as we filed by these soli- 
tary sepulchres, it was uncanny and weird, and 
the sun, when it came, was doubly welcome. 
Our first visitor from the Agency Indians was 
Fool-Dog, a Sioux chief. He was tall, com- 
manding, and had really a fine face. When he 
was ready to go home he invited us to come to 
his village before we left on our next march. 



no The Boy General 



At twilight my husband and I walked over. 
The village was a collection of tepees of all 
sizes, the largest being what is called the Med- 
icine Lodge, where the councils are held. It 
was formed of tanned buffalo-hides, sewed to- 
gether with buckskin thongs, and stretched 
over a collection of thirty-six poles. These 
poles are of great value to the Indians, for in a 
sparsely timbered country like Dakota it is dif- 
ficult to find suitable trees. It is necessary to 
go a great distance to procure the kind of sap- 
ling that is light and pliable and yet sufficiently 
strong for the purpose. The poles are lashed 
together at the tops and radiate in a circle be- 
low. The smoke was pouring out of the open- 
ing above, and the only entrance to the tepee 
was a round aperture near the ground, suffi- 
ciently large to allow a person to crawl in. 
Around the lodge were poles from which were 
suspended rags ; in these were tied their medi- 
cines of roots and herbs, supposed to be a 
charm to keep off evil spirits. The sound of 
music came from within ; I crept tremblingly 
in after the General, not entirely quieted by his 
keeping my hand in his, and whispering some- 
thing to calm my fears as I sat on the buffalo- 
robe beside him. In the first place, I kpew how 
resolute the Indians were in never admitting 



Camping Among the Sioux in 

one of their own women to council, and their 
curious eyes and forbidding expressions toward 
me did not add to my comfort. The dust, smoke, 
and noise in the fading light were not reassur- 
ing. Fool-Dog arose from the circle of what 
composed their nobility, and solemnly shook 
hands with the General ; those next in rank fol- 
lowed his example. The pipe was then smoked, 
and the General had to take a whiff when it 
came his turn. Fortunately, we escaped the 
speeches, for we had not brought an interpreter. 

Most of the country passed over in our route 
belonged to the Indian Reservation, and the 
Government was endeavoring to teach the 
tribes settled there to cultivate the soil. 

As we approached an Indian village the 
chiefs came out to receive us. There were 
many high-sounding words of welcome, trans- 
lated by our guide, who, having lived among 
them many years, knew the different dialects. 
The Government had built some comfortable 
log-houses for them, in many of which I would 
have lived gladly. The Indians did not care 
for them, complaining that they had coughs if 
they occupied a house. A tepee was put up 
alongside, in which one or two families lived, 
while little low lodges, looking like the sol- 
diers' shelter-tents, were used for the young 



112 



The Boy General 



men to sleep in. The tools and stores given 
by the Government were packed away in the 
otherwise empty houses. 

A Sioux chief, called Two Bears, had the 
most picturesque village that we saw. The 
lodges were placed in a circle, as this was 
judged the most defensive position ; the ponies 
were herded inside the enclosure at night. 
This precaution was necessary, for the neigh- 
boring tribes swept down on them after dark 
and ran off the stock if they were not secured. 
As we dismounted, we saw an old man stand- 
ing alone in the circle, apparently unconscious 
of everything, as he recounted some war-tale, 
in loud, monotonous tones. He had no listen- 
ers — all were intently watching the approach- 
ing regiment ; still the venerable Sioux went 
on as persistently as if he were looking " upon 
a sea of upturned faces." He was the " medi- 
cine-man, " or oracle, of the tribe, or possibly 
the " poet-laureate" of the village, for the guide 
told us he sang of the deeds of valor of his peo- 
ple far back in history. 

Just outside of the village the chiefs sat in 
a circle awaiting us. Two Bears arose to 
welcome the General, and asked him to go 
with him to his lodge. I was asked to go also 
and be presented to Miss Two Bears ; for she 



Camping Among the Sioux 113 

was too royal in birth to be permitted outside, 
and it was not in keeping with the dignity of 
her rank to mingle with the others, the guide 
afterward explained to us. 

The honor of going alone into the tepee was 
one that I could have foregone, for my courage 
was much greater if I did my Indian sight- 
seeing surrounded by the regiment. The Gen- 
eral, fearing their ideas of hospitality might be 
offended if I declined the invitation, whispered 
an encouraging word, and we dipped our 
heads and crept into the tepee. The chief was 
a dignified old man, wrapped in his blanket, 
without the usual addition of some portion of 
citizen's dress which the Indians believe adds 
to their grandeur. His daughter also was in 
complete squaw's costume ; her feet were 
moccasined, her legs and ankles wound round 
with beaded leggings, and she had on the one 
buckskin garment which never varies in cut 
through all the tribes. A blanket drawn over 
her head was belted at her waist. To crown 
all this, however, she had an open parasol, 
brought to her, doubtless, as a present by 
some Indian returning from a council at 
Washington. She held it with dignity, as if 
it might be to her as much an insignia of state 
as the mace of the lord-mayor. 



ii4 



The Boy General 



Fortunately, they did not ask us to sit down 
and partake of jerked beef, or to smoke the 
never-ending pipe, so we soon got through our 
compliments and returned to the outer en- 
trance of the village. 

Here the tribe was assembled, and evidently 
attired in gala-dress in our honor. We were 
most interested in the village belle, and the 
placid manner in which she permitted us to 
walk around her, gazing and talking her good 
points over, showed that she expected homage. 
She sat on a scarlet blanket spread on the 
ground, and over her, stretched from poles, 
was another for an awning. She was loaded 
with ornaments, row after row of beads about 
her neck, broad armlets and anklets of brass, 
pinchbeck rings, and a soft buckskin dress and 
leggings, heavily embroidered. Her ears were 
pierced twice — on the side as well as in the 
lobe — and from these holes were suspended 
circles of gilt. Her bright eyes, the satin 
smoothness of her hair, and the clear brown 
of the skin made a pretty picture. There was 
no attempt to blend into the brown the bright 
patch of carmine on each cheek. 

Only extreme youth and its ever attractive 
charms can make one forget the heavy square 
shape of Indian faces and their coarse features, 



Camping Among the Sioux 115 

It was surprising to see all the other squaws 
giving up the field to this one so completely. 
They crouched near, with a sort of " every-dog- 
must-have-its-day " look, and did not even dis- 
pute her sway by making coy eyes as we spoke 
to them. 

There were but few young men. Their ab- 
sence was always excused by the same reason 
— they were out hunting. We knew how little 
game there was, and surmised — what we after- 
ward found to be true — that they had joined 
the hostile tribes, and only came in to the dis- 
tribution of supplies and presents in the fall. 
A few rods from the village a tripod of poles 
was set in the ground, and lashed to it the 
Indian's shield, made of the hide of the buffalo 
where it is thickest about the neck. There 
were rude paintings and Indian hieroglyphics 
covering it. The shield is an heirloom with 
the Indian, and the one selected to hang out 
in this manner has always the greatest war 
record. One of their superstitions is that it 
keeps away enemies. These nomads had some 
idea of luxury, for I recollect seeing some of 
them reclining on a kind of rest made of a 
framework of pliable rods, over which was 
stretched buckskin. 

When we had reached camp and were tak- 



n6 The Boy General 



ing our afternoon siesta the same day, with the 
tent walls raised for air, we were roused by the 
sound of music. Looking off over the bluffs 
we saw a large body of Indians approaching on 
ponies, while squaws and children ran beside 
them. It was the prompt response of Two 
Bears to the General's invitation to return his 
call. The warriors stopped near camp, and dis- 
mounting, advanced toward us. The squaws 
unbridled and picketed the ponies, and made 
themselves comfortable by arranging shades 
of the bright blankets. They staked down two 
corners closely to the ground, and propped up 
the others with poles stuck in the sod. 

When the Indians came up to us, the council 
was, as usual, begun. The pipe being smoked, 
Two Bears gave us a eulogy of himself. He 
then demanded, in behalf of the tribe, payment 
for the use of the ground on which we were 
encamped, and also for the grass consumed, 
though it was too short to get more than an 
occasional tuft. He ended, as they all do, with 
a request for food. The General, in reply, 
vaguely referred them to the Great Father in 
payment for the use of their land, but pre- 
sented them with a beef in return for their 
hospitality. Only half-satisfied, they stalked 
away one by one. We watched them at a 



Camping A mong the Sioux 1 1 7 

distance kill and divide the beef. It surprised 
us to see how they despatched it, and that 
hardly a vestige of it was left. 

The interpreter kept constantly before us 
the fine post that we were approaching, and 
the last day before we reached there it was 
visible for a long distance. The atmosphere 
of Dakota was so deceptive that we imagined 
ourselves within a few miles of the garrison, 
when, in reality, there was a march of twenty- 
nine long miles before us. 

Our road led up from the river valley on the 
high bluffs, and sometimes followed along the 
backbone of hills from which on either side 
we looked down a great distance. There was 
barely room for the travelling-wagon. Occa- 
sionally I had been obliged to take refuge from 
the cold for a little while and drive. Our lead- 
mules were tiny, quick-moving little dots, and 
I soon discovered that they were completely 
demoralized at the sight of an Indian. They 
could see one in advance long before the driv- 
er could. A sudden shying and quick turning 
of these agile little brutes, a general tangle 
of themselves in the harness and legs of the 
wheelers, loud shouts of the driver, and a quick 
downfall of his foot on the brake, to keep us 
from overturning, made an exciting confusion. 



1 1 8 The Boy General 



Nothing would get them righted and started 
again. They would have to be unharnessed, 
and the rebellious pair tied to the rear of the 
wagon until we had gone far beyond the object 
of terror. Part of the day that we were follow- 
ing the road alongside hills and over the nar- 
row, smooth level of the hill-tops, I was com- 
pelled to drive, and I watched anxiously the 
ears of these wretched little beasts to see if they 
expressed any sentiment of fright. We came 
to such steep descents that the brake holding 
the wheels seemed of no use. Looking down 
from the wagon on to the mules below us, we 
appeared to be in the position of flies on a 
wall. 

As we came to one descent more awful than 
the rest, the General, who was always near, 
rode up to the carriage and told me not to be 
afraid, for he would order the wheels manned. 
Over a hundred men, dismounting, attached 
ropes to the wheels, and held on with all their 
strength while I went down the steepest de- 
clivity I had ever descended. After that I 
begged to get out, and the General carried 
me to a bank and set me down where I could 
watch the repairing of the road. 

He took off his coat and joined the soldiers 
in carrying logs and shovelling earth, for they 



A dventures During the March 119 

were obliged to fill up the soft bed of the 
stream before the command could cross. It 
took a long time and much patience ; but the 
General enjoyed it. When the logs were all 
laid, I had to laugh at the energy he showed in 
cracking a whip he borrowed from a teamster, 
and shouting to the mules to urge them to pull 
through where there was danger of their stall- 
ing. When the road was completed, the sol- 
diers again manned the wheels to prevent the 
carriage sliding back, the mules scrambled, and 
with the aid of language prepared expressly 
for them, we reached the summit. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ADVENTURES DURING THE MARCH 

My husband and I kept up our little side- 
trips by ourselves as we neared the hour for 
camping each day. One day one of the offi- 
cers accompanied us. We left the higher 
ground to go down by the water and have the 
luxury of wandering through the cottonwood- 
trees that sometimes fringed the river for sev- 
eral miles. As usual, we had a number of 
dogs leaping and racing around us. Two of 



120 The Boy General 



them started a deer, and the General bounded 
after them, encouraging the others with his 
voice to follow. He had left his friend with 
me, and we rode leisurely along to see that 
the younger dogs did not get lost. Without 
the least warning, in the dead stillness of that 
desolate spot, we suddenly came upon a group 
of young Indian warriors seated in their mo- 
tionless way in the underbrush. I became 
perfectly cold and numb with terror. My 
danger in connection with the Indians was 
twofold. I was in peril from death or capture 
by the savages, and liable to be killed by my 
own friends to prevent my capture. During 
the five years I had been with the regiment in 
Kansas, I had marched many hundred miles. 
Sometimes I had to join my husband going 
across a dangerous country, and the exposure 
from Indians all those years had been constant. 
I had been a subject of conversation among 
the officers, being the only woman who, as a 
rule, followed the regiment, and without dis- 
cussing it much in my presence, the universal 
understanding was that any one having me in 
charge in an emergency where there was im- 
minent danger of my capture, should shoot 
me instantly. While I knew that I was de- 
fended by strong hands and brave hearts, the 



Adventures During the March 121 

thought of the double danger always flashed 
into ray mind when we were in jeopardy. 

If time could have been measured by sensa- 
tions, a cycle seemed to have passed in those 
few seconds. The Indians snatched up their 
guns, leaped upon their ponies, and prepared 
for attack. The officer with me was perfectly 
calm, spoke to them coolly without a change of 
voice, and rode quickly beside me, telling me 
to advance. My horse reared violently at first 
sight of the Indians, and started to run. Gladly 
would I have put him to his mettle then, except 
for the instinct of obedience, which any one fol- 
lowing a regiment acquires in all that pertains 
to military directions. The General was just 
visible ascending a bluff beyond. To avoid 
showing fear when every nerve is strung to its 
utmost and your heart leaps into your throat, 
requires superhuman effort. I managed to 
check my horse and did not scream. No 
amount of telling over to myself what I had 
been told, that all the tribes on this side were 
peaceable and that only those on the other side 
of the river were warlike, could quell the throb- 
bing of my pulses. Indians were Indians to 
me, and I knew well that it was a matter of no 
time to cross and recross on their little tub-like 
boats that shoot madly down the current. 



122 The Boy General 



What made me sure that these warriors 
whom we had just met were from the fighting 
bands was the recollection of some significant 
signs we had come upon in the road a few days 
previous. Stakes had been set in the ground, 
with bits of red flannel fastened on them. This, 
the guide explained, meant warnings from the 
tribes at war to frighten us from any farther 
advance into their country. Whether because 
of the coolness of the officer, or because the 
warriors knew of the size of the advancing 
column, we were allowed to proceed unharmed. 
How interminable the distance seemed to where 
the General awaited us, unconscious of what we 
had encountered ! I was lifted out of the sad- 
dle a very limp and unconscious thing. 

Encouraged by references to other dangers I 
had lived through without flinching, I mounted 
again and followed the leader closely. He took 
us through some rough country, where the am- 
bitious horses, finding that by bending their 
heads they could squeeze through, forgot to seek 
openings high enough to admit those sitting in 
the saddle. We crashed through underbrush, 
and I, with habit torn and hands scratched, was 
sometimes almost lifted up, Absalom-like, by 
the resisting branches. Often we had no path, 
and the General's horse, " Vic," would start 



Adventures During the March 123 

straight up steep banks after we had forded 
streams. It never occurred to his rider, until 
after the ascent was made, and a faint voice 
arose from the valley, that all horses would not 
do willingly what his thoroughbred did. He 
finally turned to look back and tell me how to 
manage my horse. I abandoned the bridle 
when we came to those ascents, and wound 
my hands in the horse's mane to keep from 
sliding entirely off, while the animal took his 
own way. All this was such variety and ex- 
citement that I forgot my terror. 

We found a bit of lovely road, which only 
those who go hundreds of miles under a blazing 
sun can appreciate fully. The sunshine came 
flickering down through the branches of the 
trees and covered the short grass with check- 
ered light and shade. Here we dawdled, and 
enjoyed looking up at the patches of blue sky 
through great grown-up tree-tops. It was like 
a bit of woods at home, where I never thought 
to be grateful for foliage, but took it as a mat- 
ter of course. My husband remembered my 
having put some biscuit in the leather pocket 
on my saddle, and invited himself to luncheon 
at once. We dismounted, and threw ourselves 
on the ground to eat the very frugal fare. 

After resting, we gave ourselves the privilege 



124 The Boy General 



of a swift gallop over the stretch of smooth 
ground before us. We were laughing and 
talking so busily I never noticed the surround- 
ings until I found we were almost in the midst 
of an Indian village, quite hidden under a bluff. 
My heart literally stood still. I watched the 
General furtively. He was, as usual, perfectly 
unmoved. There were but few occupants of 
the village, but they glowered and growled, 
and I could see the venomous glances they cast 
on us as I meekly followed. I trembled so I 
could barely keep my seat as we slowly ad- 
vanced, for the General even slackened his 
speed, to demonstrate to them, I suppose, that 
we felt ourselves perfectly at home. He said 
" How," of course, which was his usual saluta- 
tion to them. An echoing " How " beside him 
proved that I still had power of utterance. 
When we came to one Indian, who looked 
menacingly at us and doggedly stood in our 
road, the officer with us declared that I ac- 
companied my " How" with a salaam so deep 
that it bent my head down to the pommel of 
my saddle ! 

In a few moments, which seemed however a 
lifetime, we saw the reason why the village ap- 
peared so empty. Men, women, and children 
had gone nearly to the top of the bluff, and 



Adventures During the March 125 

there, with their bodies hidden, were looking 
off at a faint cloud of dust in the distance. 

My husband, appreciating my terror, quick- 
ly assured me it was the Seventh Cavalry. 
Even then, what a stretch of country it seemed 
between us and that blessed veil of sand, 
through which we perceived dimly that suc- 
cor was at hand. 

My horse was rather given to snuggling, and 
pressed so against the General that he made his 
leg very uncomfortable sometimes. But it 
seemed to me an ocean of space was dividing 
us. I longed for the old Puritan days, when a 
wife rode on a pillion behind her liege. 

I found courage to look back at last. The 
bluff was crowned with little irregularities, so 
still that they seemed like tufts of grass or 
stones. They represented many pairs of bead- 
like eyes, that peered over the country at the 
advancing troops. 

The next day the General thought I might 
rather not go with him than run the risk of 
such frights ; but I gladly consented to be 
taken along every day, although there never 
seemed a time when it was not necessary to get 
accustomed to some new terror. 

The rattlesnakes were so numerous on this 
march that all Texas and Kansas experience 



126 The Boy General 

seemed dwarfed in contrast. My horse was 
over sixteen hands high, but I would gladly 
have exchanged him for a camelopard when I 
rode suddenly almost upon a snake coiled in 
the grass, and looked down into the eyes of the 
upraised head. We counted those we encoun- 
tered in one day's journey until we were tired. 
The men became very expert and systematic 
in clearing the camp of these reptiles. If we 
halted at night in the underbrush, they cut and 
tore away the reeds and grass, and began at 
once to beat the ground and kill the snakes. 
As many as forty were killed in one night. 
After that, when the ground was selected for 
our camp in the low part of the valley, I was 
loath to lie down and sleep until the soldiers 
had come up to prepare the ground. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION 

The day at last came for our march of five 
hundred miles to terminate. A rickety old 
ferryboat that took us over the river made a ; 
halt near Fort Rice, and there we established 
ourselves. ..Strange to. say, the river was no n&r- 



The Yellowstone Expedition 127 



rower there than we had found it many hundred 
miles below, where we started. Muddy and 
full of sand-bars as it was, we began bravely to 
drink the water, when the glass had been filled 
long enough for the sediment partially to settle, 
and to take our bath in what at first seemed 
liquid mud. We learned after a time to settle 
the water with alum, and we finally became ac- 
customed to the taste. 

The Commandant at Fort Rice was most hos- 
pitable, and his wife charming. The quarters 
were very ordinary frame buildings, with no 
modern improvements. They were painted a 
funereal tint, but one warranted to last. The 
interior showed the presence of a tasteful 
woman. She met us as cheerfully as if she 
were in the luxurious home from which we 
knew she had gone as a girl to follow a soldier's 
life. The dinner was excellent, and our enter- 
tainers were the happy possessors of a good 
cook. Rarely do army people have two good 
servants at the same time on the frontier. Our 
host and hostess made no apologies, but quietly 
waited on the table themselves, and a merry 
time we had over the blunders of the head of 
the house, who was a distinguished general, in 
his endeavors to find necessary dishes in the 
ji china-closet * -~ 





128 The Boy General 



A steamer that arrived a day or two after we 
had reached Fort Rice brought the regimental 
property. Our household effects and trunks 
were delivered to us in a very sorry condition. 
They had been carelessly stored on the wharf 
at Yankton, near the Government warehouse, 
without any covering, during all the storms 
that drenched us coming up the river. Almost 
everything was mildewed and ruined. We 
tried to dry our clothing in the sun. Many a 
little bit of silken finery that we had cherished 
since our marriage days was suspended from 
the tent-ropes, stained and dull. Our sister's 
husband helped her to unpack her clothes and 
his own soaked uniform. He was dignified and 
reserved by nature, but on that occasion the 
barriers were broken. I heard him ask Mar- 
garet to excuse him while he went outside the 
tent to make some remarks to himself. There 
were furious people on all sides, and savage 
speeches about the thoughtlessness of those 
who had left our property exposed to snow 
and rain, when we were no longer there to 
care for it. I endured everything with patience 
until my pretty wedding-dress was taken out, 
crushed, and spotted with mildew. 

All thought began now to centre on the com- , 
ing events of the summer. It was decided that 



The Yellowstone Expedition 129 

the regiment was to go out to guard the en- 
gineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad while 
they surveyed the route from Bismarck to the 
Yellowstone River. The ladies necessarily 
were to be left behind. Now began the sum- 
mer of my discontent. I longed to remain in 
Dakota, for I knew it would take much longer 
for our letters to reach us if we went East. 
Besides, it was far more comforting to stay at 
a military post, where everyone was interested 
in the expedition, and talked about it as the 
chief topic of concern. I remembered when I 
had gone East before, during a summer when 
our regiment was fighting Indians, and my 
idea was that the whole country would be 
almost as absorbed as we were, how shocked I 
was to be asked, when I spoke of the regiment, 
" Ah, is there a campaign, and for what pur- 
pose has it gone out?" 

I was willing to live in a tent alone at the 
post, but there were not even tents to be had. 
Then we all looked with envious eyes at the 
quarters at Fort Rice. The post was small, 
and there were no vacant rooms except in the 
bachelor quarters. 

There was nothing left for us, then, but to go 
home. It was a sore disappointment. We were 
put on the steamer that was to take us to Bw- 



130 The Boy General 



marck, a heart-broken little group. I hated 
Dakota, the ugly river, and even my native 
land. We were nearly devoured with mos- 
quitoes at once. Only the strongest ammonia 
on our faces and hands served to alleviate the 
torment. The journey was wretchedness itself. 
I had thrown myself on the berth in one of the 
little suffocating state-rooms, exhausted with 
weeping, and too utterly overcome with the 
anguish of parting to know much of the sur- 
roundings. 

At last the slow, wearisome journey was 
over, and we went into the little town of Bis- 
marck to take the cars, and soon found our- 
selves welcomed by dear father and mother 
Custer, at Monroe. 

For several slow, irksome months I did little 
else than wait for the tardy mails, and count 
each day that passed again. I had very inter- 
esting letters from my husband, sometimes 
thirty and forty pages in length. He wrote of 
his delight at having again his whole regiment 
with him, his interest in the country, his hunt- 
ing exploits, and the renewal of his friendship 
with General Rosser. The Seventh Cavalry 
were sent out to guard the engineers of the 
Northern Pacific, while they surveyed the route 
to the Yellowstone. This party of citizens 



The Yellowstone Expedition 131 

joined the command a few days out from Fort 
Rice. The General wrote me that he was lying 
on the buffalo-robe in his tent, resting after the 
march, when he heard a voice outside asking 
the sentinel which was General Custer's tent. 
The General called out, " Halloo, old fellow ! I 
haven't heard that voice in thirteen years, but 
I know it. Come in and welcome !" 

General Rosser walked in, and such a reunion 
as they had ! These two had been classmates 
and warm friends at West Point, and parted 
with sorrow when General Rosser went into 
the Southern Army. Afterward they had 
fought each other in the Shenandoah Valley 
time and time again. Both of them lay on the 
robe for hours talking over the campaigns in 
Virginia. In the varying fortunes of war, some- 
times one had got possession of the wagon- 
train belonging to the other. I knew of several 
occasions when they had captured each other's 
head-quarters wagons with the private luggage. 
If one drove the other back in retreat, before 
he went into camp he wrote a note addressing 
the other as "dear friend/ and saying, "you 
may have made me take a few steps this way 
to-day, but I'll be even with you to-morrow. 
Please accept my good wishes and this little 
gift." These notes and presents were left at 



132 The Boy General 



the house of some Southern woman, as they 
retreated out of the village. 

Once General Custer took all of his friend's 
luggage, and found in it a new uniform coat of 
Confederate gray. He wrote a humorous letter 
that night thanking General Rosser for setting 
him up in so many new things, but audaciously 
asking if he " would direct his tailor to make 
the coat-tails of his next uniform a little shorter," 
as there was a difference in the height of the 
two men. General Custer captured his herd 
of cattle at one time, but he was so hotly pur- 
sued by General Rosser that he had to dis- 
mount, cut a whip, and drive them himself 
until they were secured. 

To return to the Yellowstone expedition — 
the hour for starting never varied more than a 
few moments during the summer, and it was so 
early the civilians connected with the engineer- 
ing party could not become reconciled to it. 
In the afternoon my husband sometimes walked 
out on the outskirts of camp, and threw him- 
self down in the grass to rest with his dogs 
beside him. 

It was a source of amusement to him if he 
accidentally overheard the grumbling. His 
campaigning dress was so like that of an en- 
listed man, and his insignia of rank so unnotice- 



The Yellowstone Expedition 133 

able, that the tongues ran on, indifferent to his 
presence. Sometimes, in their growling, the 
civilians accused him of having something on 
his conscience, and declared that, not being 
able to sleep himself, he woke every one else to 
an unearthly reveille. At this he choked with 
laughter, and to their dismay they discovered 
who he was. 

I remember his telling me of another occa- 
sion, when he unavoidably heard a soldier ex- 
claim, " There goes taps, and before we get a 
mouthful to eat, reveille will sound, and * Old 
Curley ' will hike us out for the march." The 
soldier was slightly discomfited to find the sub- 
ject of his remarks was within hearing. 

The enlisted men were constantly finding new 
names for the General, which I should never 
have known — thereby losing some amusement 
— if Mary had not occasionally told me of them. 
A favorite was " Jack," the letters G. A. C. on 
his valise having served as a suggestion. 

When the expedition returned from the Yel- 
lowstone, a despatch came to me in Michigan, 
saying the regiment had reached Fort Lincoln 
in safety. Another soon followed, informing 
me that my husband was on his way home. 
The relief from constant anxiety and suspense, 
together with all the excitement into which I 



134 The Boy General 



was thrown, made me almost unfit to make 
preparation to meet him. There was to be an 
army reunion in the city nearest us, and in my 
impatience I took the first train, thinking to 
reach there in advance of General Custer. As 
I walked along the street, looking into shop- 
windows, I felt, rather than saw, a sudden rush 
from a door, and I was taken off my feet and 
set dancing in air. Before I could resent what 
I thought was an indignity, I discovered that 
it was my husband, who seemed utterly regard- 
less of the passers-by. He was sunburnt and 
mottled, for the flesh was quite fair where he 
had cut his beard, the growth of the summer. 
He told me the officers with whom he had 
travelled in the Pullman car had teased him, 
and declared that no man would shave in a car 
going at forty miles an hour, except to prepare 
to meet his sweetheart. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE RETURN TO FORT LINCOLN 

In a few days we were ready to return to 
Dakota, and very glad to go, except for leaving 
the old parents. 



The Return to Fort Lincoln 135 

The hardest trial of my husband's life was 
parting with his mother. Such partings were 
the only occasions when I ever saw him lose 
entire control of himself. 

For hours before we started, I saw him fol- 
low his mother about, whispering some com- 
forting word to her ; or, opening the closed 
door of her own room, where, womanlike, she 
fought out her grief alone, sit beside her as 
long as he could endure it. She had been an 
invalid for so many years that each parting 
seemed to her the final one. Her groans and 
sobs were heart-rending. She clung to him 
every step when he started to go, and was led 
back, half-fainting, to her couch. 

The General would rush out of the house, 
sobbing like a child, and then throw himself 
into the carriage completely unnerved. I could 
only give silent comfort. My heart bled for 
him, and in the long silence that followed as 
we journeyed on, I knew that his thoughts 
were with his mother. At our first stop he 
was out of the cars in an instant, buying fruit 
to send back to her. Before we were even un- 
packed in the hotel, where we made our first 
stay, he had dashed off a letter. I have since 
seen those missives. No matter how hurriedly 
he wrote, they were proofs of the tenderest, 



136 The Boy General 



most filial love, and full of the prophecies he 
never failed to make, of the reunion that he felt 
would soon come. 

When we finally reached the termination of 
the road at Bismarck, another train was about 
starting back to St. Paul. The street was full 
of people, wildly expostulating and talking 
loudly and fiercely. It appeared that this was 
the last train of the season, as the cars were 
not to run during the winter. The passengers 
were mostly Bismarck citizens, whose lawless 
life as gamblers and murderers had so outraged 
the sentiments of the few law-abiding residents 
that they had forced them to depart. We 
could see these outlaws crowding at the door, 
hanging out of the windows, swearing and 
menacing, and finally firing on the retreating 
crowd as the cars passed out of town. We 
were quietly slipped out on the other side of 
the depot, hurried into the ambulance, and 
driven to the river. 

The ice was already thick enough to bear 
our weight part way over ; then came a swift 
rushing torrent of water which had to be crossed 
in a small boat. Some of the soldiers rowed, 
while one kept the huge cakes of floating ice 
from our frail boat with a long, iron-pointed 
pole. As I stepped into the little craft, I 



The Return to Fort Lincoln 137 

dropped upon the bottom and hid my eyes, and 
no amount of reference to dangers I had en- 
countered before induced me to look up. The 
current of the Missouri is so swift it is some- 
thing dreadful to encounter. We were lifted 
out upon the ice again, and walked to the bank. 
Once more on shore, I said to myself, here will 
I live and die, and never go on that river 
again. 

Our brother, Lieutenant Tom, met us, and 
drove us to our new home. In the dim light I 
could see the great post of Fort Lincoln, where 
only a few months before we had left a barren 
plain. Our quarters were lighted, and as we ap- 
proached, the regimental band played " Home, 
Sweet Home," followed by the General's favor- 
ite, " Garryowen." 

The General had completely settled the house 
before he left for the East, but he had kept 
this fact secret, as a surprise. Our friends had 
lighted it all, and built fires in the fireplaces. 
The garrison had gathered to welcome us, and 
Mary had a grand supper ready. How we 
chattered and gloried over the regiment hav- 
ing a home at last. It seemed too good to be- 
lieve that the Seventh Cavalry had a post of its 
own, with room for the half of the regiment 
assigned to duty there. In other garrisons, 



138 The Boy General 



when we had come in late in the fall from cam- 
paigns, the officers, in order to get places for 
themselves, had been obliged to turn some one 
else out. There is a disagreeable, though prob- 
ably necessary law in the army regulations, 
which directs officers to take their quarters ac- 
cording to rank. 

Fort Lincoln was built with quarters for six 
companies. The barracks for the soldiers were 
on the side of the parade-ground nearest the 
river, while seven detached houses for officers 
faced the river opposite. On the left of the 
parade-ground was the long granary and the 
little military prison, called the " guard-house." 
Outside the garrison proper, near the river, 
were the stables for six hundred horses. Still 
farther beyond were the quarters for the laun- 
dresses, easily traced by the swinging clothes- 
lines in front, and dubbed for this reason " Suds 
Row." Some distance on from there were the 
log huts of the Indian scouts and their families, 
while on the same side also was the level 
plain used for parades and drill. 

The post was located in a valley, while just 
back of us stretched a long chain of bluffs. On 
the summit of a hill, nearly a mile to the left, 
was a small infantry garrison, which had been 
established some time, and now belonged to 



The Return to Fort Lincoln 139 



our post. When we went to return the visits 
of the infantry ladies, the mules dragged the 
ambulance up the steep hill with difficulty. 
We found living in this bleak place — in small, 
shabbily built quarters, such as a day-laborer 
would consider hardly good enough for his 
family — delicate women and children, who, as 
usual, made no complaint about their life. Af- 
terward we were much indebted to one of the 
ladies, who, determined to conquer fate, varied 
our lives and gave us something to look for- 
ward to, by organizing a reading-club that met 
every week. She had sent to the East, before 
the trains ceased running, for the new books. 

This little post had been built before the 
railroad was completed, and the houses were 
put together with as few materials as possible. 
There was no plastering, but the ceilings and 
partitions were of thick paper made for the 
purpose. In one set of quarters there chanced 
to be so many children and so little room that 
the parents had invented a three-story bed, 
where the little ones could be all stowed at 
night. 

The soldiers asked the General's permission 
to put up a place in which they could give en- 
tertainments, and he gave them every assist- 
ance he could. They prepared the lumber in 



140 The Boy General 

the saw-mill that belonged to the post. The 
building was an ungainly looking structure, 
but large enough to hold them all. The un- 
seasoned cotton-wood warped even while the 
house was being built, but by patching and 
lining with old torn tents, they managed to 
keep out the storm. The scenery was painted 
on condemned canvas stretched on a frame- 
work, and was lifted on and off as the plays 
required. The foot-lights in front of the rude 
stage were tallow candles that smoked and sput- 
tered inside the clumsily cobbled casing of tin. 
The seats were narrow benches, without backs. 
The officers and ladies were always invited to 
take the front row at every new performance, 
and after they entered, the house filled up with 
soldiers. Some of the enlisted men played 
very well, and used great ingenuity in getting 
up their costumes. The General accepted 
every invitation, and enjoyed it all greatly. 
The clog-dancing and negro character-songs 
between the acts were excellent. Indeed, we 
sometimes had professionals, who, having been 
stranded in the States, had enlisted. 



Life at Fort Lincoln 141 



CHAPTER XVI 

LIFE AT FORT LINCOLN 

The companies each gave a ball in turn dur- 
ing the winter, and the preparations were 
begun long in advance. There was no place 
to buy anything, save the sutler's store and the 
shops in the little town of Bismarck, but they 
were well ransacked for materials for the 
supper. The bunks where the soldiers slept 
were removed from the barracks, and flags fes- 
tooned around the room. Arms were stacked 
and guidons arranged in groups. A few pict- 
ures of distinguished men were wreathed in 
imitation laurel leaves cut out of green paper. 
Chandeliers and side brackets carved out of 
cracker-box boards into fantastic shapes were 
filled with candles, while at either end of the 
long room great logs in the wide fireplaces 
threw out a cheerful light. 

The ball opened, headed by the first ser- 
geant. After this the officers and their wives 
were invited to form a set at one end of the 
room, and we danced several times. One of 
the men whose voice was clear and loud sang 



1 



142 The Boy General 



the calls. He was a comical genius, and im- 
provised new ways of calling off. When the 
place came in the quadrille to " Turn your 
partners/' his voice rose above the music, in 
the notes of the old song, " Oh, swing those 
girls, those pretty little girls, those girls you 
left behind you!" This was such an inspira- 
tion to the fun-lovers that the swinging usually 
ended in our being whirled in the air by the 
privileged members of our family. 

The soldiers were a superb lot of men physi- 
cally. The out-door life had developed them 
into perfect specimens of vigorous manhood. 
After the company tailor had cut over their 
uniforms, they were often the perfection of 
good fitting. The older soldiers wore, on the 
sleeves of their coats, the rows of braid that 
show the number of years in the service. 
Some had the army badges of the corps in 
which they fought during the war, while an 
occasional foreign decoration told that they 
had been brave soldiers in the fatherland. We 
were escorted out to the supper-room in the 
company-kitchen in advance of the enlisted 
men. The General delighted the hearts of the 
sergeant and ball-managers by sitting down to 
a great dish of potato-salad. It was always well 
flavored with the onion, as rare out there, and 



Life at Fort Lincoln 



143 



more appreciated than pomegranates" are in 
New York. We ladies took cake, of course, but 
sparingly, for it also was a great luxury. 

When we returned to watch the dancing, the 
General was on nettles for fear we should look 
amused at the costumes of the women. There 
was but a sprinkling of them : several from Bis- 
marck and a few white servants of the officers. 
Each company was allowed but three or four 
laundresses. These women were at the ball in 
full force, and each one brought her baby. 
When we removed our wraps in the room of 
the first sergeant, we usually found his bed quite 
full of curly headed infants sleeping, while the 
laundress mothers danced. The toilets of these 
women were something marvellous in construc- 
tion. In low neck and short sleeves, their round, 
red arms and well-developed figures wheeled 
around the barracks all night long. 

The hounds were an endless source of de- 
light to the General. We had about forty: 
the stag-hounds that run by sight, and are on 
the whole the fleetest and most enduring dogs 
in the world, and the fox-hounds that follow the 
trail with their noses close to the ground. The 
first rarely bark, but the latter are very noisy. 
The General and I used to listen with amuse- 
ment to their attempts to strike the key-note of 



144 The Boy General 



the bugler when he sounded the calls summon- 
ing the men to guard-mount, stables, or retreat. 
It rather destroyed the military effect to see, 
beside his soldierly figure, a hound sitting down 
absorbed in imitation, while with lifted head and 
rolling eyes there issued from the broad mouth 
notes most doleful. 

I never tired of watching the start for the 
hunt. The General was a figure that would 
have fixed attention anywhere. He had marked 
individuality of appearance, and a certain un- 
studied carelessness in the wearing of his cos- 
tume that gave a picturesque effect, not the 
least out of place on the frontier. He wore 
troop-boots reaching to his knees, buckskin 
breeches fringed on the sides, a dark navy blue 
shirt with a broad collar, a red necktie, whose 
ends floated over his shoulder exactly as they 
did when he and his entire division of cavalry 
had worn them during the war. On the broad 
felt hat, that was almost a sombrero, was fast- 
ened a slight mark of his rank. 

He was at this time thirty-five years of age, 
weighed one hundred and seventy pounds, and 
was nearly six feet in height. His eyes were 
clear blue and deeply set, his hair short, wavy, 
and golden in tint. His mustache was long and 
tawny in color ; his complexion was florid, ex- 



Life at Fort Lincoln 145 

cept where his forehead was shaded by his hat, 
for the sun always burned his skin ruthlessly. 

He was the most agile, active man I ever 
knew, and so very strong and in such perfect 
physical condition that he rarely knew even an 
hour's indisposition. 

Horse and man seemed one when the General 
vaulted into the saddle. His body was so light- 
ly poised and so full of swinging, undulating 
motion, it almost seemed that the wind moved 
him as it blew over the plain. Yet every nerve 
was alert and like finely tempered steel, for the 
muscles and sinews that seemed so pliable were 
equal to the curbing of the most fiery animal. 
I do not think that he sat his horse with more 
grace than the other officers, for they rode su- 
perbly, but it was accounted by others almost 
an impossibility to dislodge the General from 
the saddle, no matter how vicious the horse 
might prove. With his own horses he needed 
neither spur nor whip. They were such friends 
of his, and his voice seemed so attuned to their 
natures, they knew as well by its inflections as 
by the slight pressure of the bridle on their 
necks what he wanted. By the merest inclina- 
tion on the General's part, they either sped on 
the wings of the wind or adapted their spirited 
steps to the slow movement of the march. It 



146 The Boy General 



was a delight to see them together, they were 
so in unison, and when he talked to them, as 
though they had been human beings, their in- 
telligent eyes seemed to reply. 

After the hunts the dogs had often to be 
cared for. They would be lame, or cut in the 
chase through the tangle of vines and branches. 
These were so dense it was a constant wonder 
to the General how the deer could press through 
with its spreading antlers. The English hounds, 
unacquainted with our game, used to begin with 
a porcupine sometimes. It was pitiful to see 
their noses and lips looking like animated pin- 
cushions. There was nothing for us to do after 
such an encounter but to begin surgery at once. 
The General would not take time to get off his 
hunting-clothes or go near the fire until he had 
called the dog into his room and extracted the 
painful quills with the tweezers of his invalua- 
ble knife. I sat on the dog and held his paws. 
The quills being barbed cannot be withdrawn, 
but must be pulled through in the same direc- 
tion in which they enter. The gums, lips, 
and roof of the mouth were full of little wounds, 
but the dogs were extremely sagacious and held 
still. When the painful operation was over they 
were very grateful, licking the General's hand 
as he praised them for their pluck. 



Life at Fort Lincoln 147 

The wolves in their desperate hunger used 
to come up on the bluffs almost within a stone's- 
throw of our quarters. It was far from pleasant 
to look out of the window and see them prowl- 
ing about. Once when the stag-hounds were 
let out of the kennel for exercise, they flew over 
the hills after a coyote. The soldier who took 
care of them could only follow on foot, as the 
crust on the snow would not bear the weight 
of a horse. After a long, cold walk he found 
the dogs standing over the wolf they had killed. 
When he had dragged it back to our wood-shed 
he sent in to ask if the General would come and 
see what the dogs had done unaided, for he was 
very proud of them. 

When the thermometer went down to 45 be- 
low zero, the utmost vigilance was exercised to 
prevent the men from being frozen. The Gen- 
eral took off all the sentinels but two, and those 
were encased in buffalo overcoats and shoes, and 
required to walk their beat but fifteen minutes 
at a time. There were no wells or cisterns, and 
the quartermaster had no means of supplying 
the post with water, except with a water-wagon 
that required six mules to haul it around the 
garrison. The hole in the river through which 
the water was drawn was cut through five feet 
of ice. It was dreadful on those bitter days to 



148 The Boy General 



see the poor men distribute the supply. My 
husband used to turn away with a shudder from 
the window when they came in sight. The two 
barrels at the kitchen-door were all that we 
could have, and on some days the men and 
wagon could not go around at all. 

We had hardly finished arranging our quar- 
ters when, one freezing night, I was awakened 
by a roaring sound in a chimney that had been 
defective from the first. The sound grew too 
loud to be mistaken, and I awakened my hus- 
band. He ran upstairs and found the room 
above us on fire. He called to me to bring him 
some water, believing he could extinguish it 
himself. While I hurried after the water, there 
came such a crash and explosion that my brain 
seemed to reel. I had no thought but that my 
husband was killed. Nothing can describe the 
relief with which I heard his voice again. His 
escape was very narrow ; the chimney had 
burst, the whole side of the room was blown 
out, and he was covered with plaster and sur- 
rounded with fallen bricks. The gas from the 
petroleum paper put on between the plastering 
and the outer walls to keep out the cold had 
exploded. The roof had ignited at once, and 
was blown off with a noise like the report of 
artillery. 



Life at Fort Lincoln 149 

The sentinel at the guard-house sounded an 
alarm and in an incredibly short time the men 
were swarming about the house. The General 
had buttoned his vest, containing his watch and 
purse, over his long night-dress, and, uncon- 
scious of his appearance, gave just as cool or- 
ders to the soldiers as if it were a drill. They, 
also, were perfectly cool, and worked like bea- 
vers to remove our things ; for with no engine 
and without water it was useless to try to save 
the house. The General stood upon the upper 
landing and forbade them to join him, as it was 
perilous, the floors being then on fire. He had 
insisted upon my going out of the house, but I 
was determined not to do so until he was safe. 
When I did leave I ran in my night-dress over 
the snow to our sister's. The house burned 
very quickly. Fortunately, it was a still, cold 
night, and there was no wind to spread the 
flames. Except for this the whole garrison 
must have been burned. 

When the morning came we went to inspect 
the heap of household belongings that had been 
carried out on the parade-ground. It was a 
sorry collection of torn, broken, and marred 
effects ! Most of my clothes were gone. 1 had 
lost silver and linen, and what laces and finery 
I had. The only loss I mourned, as it was real- 



150 The Boy General 



ly irreparable, was a collection of newspaper 
clippings regarding my husband that I had 
saved during and since the war. Besides these 
I lost a little wig that I had worn at a fancy- 
dress ball, made from the golden rings of curly 
hair cut from my husband s head after the war, 
when he had given up wearing long locks. 



CHAPTER XVII 

CAPTURE AND ESCAPE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE 

As the second winter progressed, an event 
happened that excited us all very much. 

Two of the citizens attached to the Yellow- 
stone expedition, one as the sutler, the other as 
the veterinary surgeon, were in the habit of 
riding by themselves a great deal. Not being 
enlisted men, much more liberty than- soldiers 
have was allowed them. Many warnings were 
given, however, and an instance of the killing 
by Indians of two of their comrades the year 
before was repeatedly told to them. One day 
their last hour of lingering came. While they 
stopped to water their horses, some Indians con- 
cealed in a gully shot them within sight of our 
cavalry-men who were then fighting on the hill. 



Capture of Rain-in-the-Face 151 

A year and a half afterward information 
came to our post, Fort Lincoln, that an Indian 
was then at the Agency at Standing Rock, 
drawing his rations, blankets, and ammunition 
from the Government, and at the same time 
boasting of the murder of these two men. This 
intelligence created indignation in our garrison. 
A detachment was quickly prepared, and started 
out with sealed orders. The day was bitter, 
for the wind cut like needle-points into the 
faces of the troopers. No one was aware even 
what direction they were to take. General 
Custer knew that it was necessary that caution 
and secrecy should be observed. At the next 
post, twenty miles below, there were scouts 
employed. They would not fail to send out a 
runner and warn the Standing Rock Indians of 
the coming of the command and its object, if 
they could learn what it was. When the run- 
ner carries important news he starts with an 
even gait in the morning and keeps it up all 
day, hardly stopping to drink at the streams he 
crosses. Such a courier would outstrip a com- 
mand of cavalry. 

Accordingly, Fort Rice was left behind many 
miles before the orders were opened. They 
contained directions to capture and bring back 
an Uncapapa Indian, called Rain-in-the-face, the 



152 The Boy General 



avowed murderer. The command consisted of 
a hundred men under Captain George Yates 
and Lieutenant Tom Custer. The General had 
selected his brother to assist in this delicate 
transaction. They arrived on the day that the 
Indians were drawing their rations of beef. 
There were five hundred at the Agency armed 
with long-range rifles. It was more and more 
clear that too much care could not be taken to 
prevent the object of the visit being known to 
the warriors. An expedition had been sent 
down once before, but news of its intentions had 
reached the Agency in time for the culprit to 
escape. He could not refrain, even after this 
warning, from openly vaunting his crime. 

In order then to deceive as to the purport of 
their appearance at the Agency, Captain Yates, 
the captain in command resorted to a ruse. He 
sent fifty men to the camp ten miles away to 
make inquiries for three Indians who had mur- 
dered citizens on the Red River the year before. 
Lieutenant Custer was ordered to take five 
picked men and go to the traders' store, where 
the Indians resort constantly. This required 
great coolness and extreme patience, for they 
had to lounge about, seemingly indifferent, until 
they could be certain the right man was dis- 
covered. The cold made the Indians draw 



Capture of Razn-zn-tke-Face 153 

their blankets around them and over their 
heads. There is never any individuality about 
their dress unless when arrayed for a council 
or a dance ; it was therefore almost impossible 
to tell one from the other. 

Lieutenant Tom had to wait for hours, only 
looking furtively when the sharp eyes of these 
wary creatures were off guard. At last one of 
them loosened his blanket, and with the meagre 
description that had been given him, Lieutenant 
Tom identified him as Rain-in-the-face. Com- 
ing suddenly from behind, he threw his arms 
about him, and seized the Winchester rifle that 
the savage attempted to cock. The Indian was 
taken entirely by surprise. No fear showed 
itself, but from the stolid face hate and revenge 
flashed out. He drew himself up in an inde- 
pendent manner, to show his brother warriors 
that he did not dread death. 

Among them he had been considered brave 
beyond precedent, because he had dared to 
enter the Agency store at all, and so encounter 
the risk of arrest. The soldiers tied his hands 
and mounted guard over him. About thirty- 
Indians surrounded them instantly, and one old 
orator commenced an harangue to the others, 
inciting them to recapture their brother. 
Breathless excitement prevailed. At that mo- 



154 The Boy General 

ment the captain in command appeared among 
them, and spoke to them, through an interpre- 
ter. With prudence and tact he explained that 
they intended to give the prisoner exactly the 
treatment a white man would receive under 
like circumstances ; that nothing would induce 
them to give him up ; and the better plan, to 
save bloodshed, would be for the chiefs to 
withdraw and take with them their followers. 
Seeing that they coul'd accomplish nothing by 
intimidation or by superior numbers, they had 
recourse to parley and proposed to compro- 
mise. They offered as a sacrifice two Indians 
of the tribe in exchange for Rain-in-the-face. 

It was generosity like that of Artemus Ward, 
who offered his wife's relatives on the altar of 
his country, for they took care not to offer for 
sacrifice any Indians of equal rank. Rain-in- 
the-face was a very distinguished warrior 
among them, and belonged to a family of six 
brothers, one of whom, Iron Horse, was very 
influential. The officers prevailed in the end, 
and the prisoner was taken to the cavalry camp. 
During the time that the Indians were opposing 
his removal, the troopers had assembled around 
the entrance, ready for any emergency, and 
prepared to escort the murderer away. The 
Indians instantly vanished ; all went to their 



Capture of Rain-in-t he-Face 155 

camp, ten miles distant. Our officers expected 
an attack when they began their homeward 
march ; to their surprise, they were unmolested. 

After the command had returned, General 
Custer sent for Rain-in-the-face. He was tall, 
straight, and young. His face was quite stolid. 
In a subsequent interview the General locked 
himself in his room with him. Through an in- 
terpreter, and with every clever question and 
infinite patience he spent hours trying to induce 
the Indian to acknowledge his crime. The 
culprit's face finally lost its impervious look, 
and he showed some agitation. He gave a 
brief account of the murder, and the next day 
made a full confession before all the officers. 
He said neither of the white men was armed 
when attacked. He had shot the old man, but 
he did not die instantly, riding a short distance 
before falling from his horse. He then went 
to him and with his stone mallet beat out the 
last breath left. Before leaving him he shot 
his body full of arrows. The younger man 
signalled to them from among the bushes, 
and they knew that the manner in which he 
held up his hand was an overture of peace. 
When he reached him the white man gave 
him his hat as another and further petition for 
mercy, but he shot him at once, first with his 



156 The Boy General 

gun and then with arrows. One of the latter 
entering his back, the dying man struggled to 
pull it through. Neither man was scalped, as 
the elder was bald and the younger had closely 
cropped hair. 

This cruel story set the blood of the officers 
flowing hotly. They had already heard from 
one of the white scouts a description of Rain- 
in-the-face at a sun-dance, when he had betrayed 
himself as the murderer of the veterinary sur- 
geon, by describing in triumph his beating out 
the brains of the old man with his mallet. After 
all this, it is not to be wondered at that each 
officer strode out of the room with blazing eyes. 

Two Indians, one of them Iron Horse, had 
followed the cavalry up from the Agency and 
asked to see their comrade. The General sent 
again for Rain-in-the-face. He came into the 
room with clanking chains and with the guard 
at his heels. He was dressed in mourning. 
His leggings were black, and his sable blanket 
was belted by a band of white beads. One black 
feather stood erect on his head. Iron Horse 
supposed that he was to be hanged at once, and 
that this would be the final interview. The 
elder brother, believing there was no hope, was 
very solemn. He removed his heavily beaded 
and embroidered buffalo-robe, and replaced it 



Capture of Rain-in-t he-Face 157 

with the plain one that Rain-in-the-face wore. 
He exchanged pipes also, giving him his highly 
ornamented one that he might present it to the 
General. Then finding that there was a pros- 
pect of Rain-in-the-face having his trial in 
Washington, he took off the medal that had 
been given to his father by a former President, 
whose likeness was in the medallion, and placed 
it over the neck of his brother, that it might be 
a silent argument in his favor when he con- 
fronted the " Great Father." 

It was a melancholy scene. Iron Horse 
charged his brother not to attempt to escape. 
He believed that he would be kindly treated 
while a captive, and perhaps the white chief 
would intercede for him to obtain his pardon. 
After asking him not to lose courage, they 
smoked again, and silently withdrew. In about 
ten days Iron Horse returned, bringing a por- 
tion of his tribe with him. 

A New York Charity Ball could bring out no 
more antique heirlooms, nor take more time in 
preparations than the costumes of Indians pre- 
pared for council. The war-bonnets, shields, 
and necklaces of bear's claws are all handed 
down from far-away grandfathers, and only 
aired on grand occasions. Every available bit 
of metal that could catch the light reflected and 



158 The Boy General 



shone in the morning sun. The belts were 
covered with brass nails, shining with many an 
hour's polishing. They had many weapons, all 
kept in a brilliant and glistening state. The 
tomahawk is one of the heirlooms of the collec- 
tion of arms. It looks like a large ice-pick. The 
knife, pistol, and Henry rifle are very modern, 
and are always kept in the most perfect condi- 
tion. Mrs. " Lo " is the Venus who prepares 
Mars for war, and many a long weary hour she 
spends in polishing the weapon and adorning 
the warrior. 

The Indians with Iron Horse came directly 
to head-quarters and asked for a council. As 
many as could get into the General's room en- 
tered. There was time, while they were pre- 
paring, to send for the ladies, and a few of us 
were tucked away on the lounge, with injunc- 
tions not to move or whisper, for my husband 
treated these Indians as if they had been 
crowned heads. The Indians turned a sur- 
prised, rather scornful glance into the " ladies' 
gallery." In return for this we did not hesitate 
to criticise their toilets. They were gorgeous 
in full dress. Iron Horse wore an elaborately 
beaded and painted buckskin shirt, with masses 
of solid embroidery of porcupine quills. The 
sleeves and shoulders were ornamented with a 



Capture of Rain-in-the-Face 159 

fringe of scalp-locks ; some of the hair, we saw 
with a shudder, was light and waving. I could 
not but picture the little head from which it 
had been taken. The chief wore on his shoul- 
ders a sort of cape, trimmed with a fringe of 
snowy ermine ; his leggings and moccasins were 
a mass of bead-work. He wore a cap of otter, 
without a crown, for it is their custom to leave 
the top of the head uncovered. His hair was 
wound round and round with strips of otter 
that hung down his back ; the scalp-lock was 
also tightly wound. Three eagle feathers, that 
denote the number of warriors killed, were so 
fastened to the lock that they stood erect. 
There were several perforations in each ear 
from which depended bead ear-rings. He had 
armlets of burnished brass ; thrown around him 
was a beaded blanket. The red clay pipe had 
the wooden stem inlaid with silver, and was 
embellished with the breast feathers of brill- 
iantly plumaged birds. The tobacco-bag, about 
two feet long, had not an inch that was not 
decorated. 

The next in rank had an immense buffalo-robe 
as the distinguishing feature of his dress. The 
inside was tanned almost white, and his history 
was painted on the surface. Whoever ran 
might read, for it represented only two scenes, 



160 The Boy General 



oft repeated — the killing and scalping of war- 
riors and the capture of ponies. 

The General's patience with Indians always 
surprised me. I have often wondered how he 
contained himself waiting an hour or more for 
them to get at the object of their visit. They 
took their places according to rank in a semi- 
circle about the General. The pipe was filled 
and a match lighted by one of their number of 
inferior grade, and then handed to Iron Horse, 
who took a few leisurely whiffs. Though we 
were so shut in, the smoke was not oppressive. 
Their tobacco is killikinick, prepared by drying 
the bark of the ozier and mixing it with sumach. 
After all in the first circle had smoked a little, 
the General included, they observed the Indian 
etiquette and passed the pipe back through each 
warrior's hand to the chief. It was then re- 
lighted, and he began again. It seemed to us 
that it went back and forth an endless number 
of times. No matter how pressing the emer- 
gency, every council begins in this manner. 

When the pipe was finally put away, they 
asked to have Rain-in-the-face present. He 
came into the room, trying to hide his pleasure 
at seeing his friends and his grief at his impris- 
onment, but in an instant the stolid expression 
settled down on his face like a curtain. The 



THE BATTLE-FIELD OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN. 



Capttire of Rain-in-t he-Face 161 

officers present could scarcely believe their eyes 
when they saw his brother approach and kiss 
him. Only once before, among all the tribes 
they had been with, had they seen such an oc- 
currence. The Indian kiss is not demonstra- 
tive; the lips are laid softly on the cheek, and 
no sound is heard or motion made. It was only 
this grave occasion that induced the chief to 
show such feeling. Several of the ranking Ind- 
ians followed his example; then an old man 
among them stepped in front of Rain-in-the- 
face, lifted his hands, and raising his eyes rev- 
erentially said a few words of prayer to the 
Great Spirit in behalf of their unfortunate 
brother. 

Iron Horse began his speech in the usual high- 
pitched, unchangeable key. He thanked the 
General for his care of his brother, and begged 
him to ask the Great Father in Washington 
to spare his life. He then slowly took off his 
elaborate buckskin shirt and presented it to my 
husband. He ended by making a singular re- 
quest, which was worthy of Damon and Pythias: 
two shy young braves in the outer circle of the 
untitled asked permission, through their chief, 
to share the captivity of Rain-in-the-face. 

Consent was given to the comrades to return 
to the guard-house, but they were required to 



1 62 The Boy General 



remain in confinement as he did until they were 
ready to return to the reservation. After all the 
ranking Indians had followed Iron Horse in 
speeches, with long, maundering sentences, the 
pipe was again produced. When it was smoked, 
the whole band filed out to eat the food the 
General had given them, and soon afterward 
disappeared down the valley. 

After his two friends had left him, Rain-in- 
the-face occupied apart of the guard-house with 
a citizen who had been caught stealing grain 
from the storehouse. For several months they 
were chained together, and used to walk in 
front of the little prison for exercise and air. 
The guard-house was a poorly built wooden 
building. After a time the sentinels became 
less vigilant, and the citizen, with help from his 
friends outside, who were working in the same 
way, cut a hole in the wall at night and escaped. 
He broke the chain attaching him to the Indian, 
who was left free to follow. Rain-in-the-face 
did not dare to return to the reservation, but 
made his way to the hostile camp. In the 
spring of 1874 he sent word from there by an 
Agency Indian that he had joined Sitting Bull, 
and was awaiting his revenge. 

The stained waters of the Little Big Horn, 
on June 25, 1876, told how deadly and fatal that 



An Indian Council 



was. It was found on the battle-field that he 
had cut out the brave heart of that gallant, 
loyal, and lovable man, our brother Tom. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

AN INDIAN COUNCIL 

The Indians came several times from the 
reservations for counsel, but the occasion that 
made the greatest impression upon me was 
toward the spring. They came to implore 
the General for food. In the fall the steamer 
bringing them supplies was detained in start- 
ing. It had hardly accomplished half the re- 
quired distance before the ice impeded its 
progress, and it lay out in the channel, frozen 
in, all winter. The suffering among the Ind- 
ians was great. They were compelled to eat 
their dogs and ponies to keep from starving. 
Believing a personal appeal would be effect- 
ual, they asked to come to our post for a 
council. 

The Indian band brought their great orator, 
Running Antelope. He was intensely digni- 
fied and fine-looking. His face when he spoke 
was expressive and animated. As he stood 



164 The Boy General 



among- them in the General's room, he made an 
indelible impression on my memory. The Ind- 
ians' feet are usually small ; sometimes their 
vanity induces them to put on women's shoes. 
The hands are slender and marvellously soft 
considering their life of exposure. Their 
speech is full of gesture, and the flexible wrist 
makes their movements expressive. A distin- 
guished scholar, speaking of the aid the hand 
is to an orator, calls it the " second face." It 
certainly was so with Running Antelope. He 
described the distressing condition of the tribe 
with real eloquence. While he spoke, lifting 
his graceful hands toward Heaven in appeal, 
one of my husband's birds that was uncaged 
floated down and alighted on the venera- 
ble warrior's head. It maintained its poise, 
spreading its wings to keep its balance, as the 
Indian moved his head in gesture. Finally the 
bird whirled up to his favorite resting-place 
on the horn of the buffalo head, and the war- 
rior understood the unusual sight of a smile 
from his people. 

His whole appeal was most impressive, and 
touched the quick sympathies of my husband. 
The storehouses at our post were filled with 
supplies, and he promised to telegraph to the 
Great Father for permission to give them ra- 



An Indian Council 165 

tions until spring. Meantime, he promised 
them all they could eat while they awaited at 
the post the answer to the despatch. Not con- 
tent with a complaint of their present wrongs, 
Running Antelope denounced the agents, call- 
ing them dishonest. 

One of the Indians, during the previous sum- 
mer, with fox-like cunning had lain out on 
the dock all day apparently sleeping, while he 
watched the steamer unloading supplies in- 
tended for them. A mental estimate was care- 
fully made of what came off the boat, and com- 
pared as carefully afterward with what was 
distributed. A portion that should have been 
theirs was detained, and they accused the 
agent of keeping it. The General interrupted, 
and asked the interpreter to say that the Great 
Father selected the agents from among good 
men before sending them out from Washing- 
ton. Running Antelope quickly responded, 
" They may be good men when they leave the 
Great Father, but they get to be desperate 
cheats by the time they reach us." 

When the council was ended and the Indians 
were preparing to leave, my husband asked me 
to have Mary put everything we had ready to 
eat on the dining-room table. The stately man- 
ner in which Running Antelope folded his robe 



1 66 The Boy General 



around him and strode down the long parlor 
was worthy of a Roman emperor. 

I had been so impressed by his oratory and 
lordly mien that I could hardly believe my 
eyes when I saw him at table. After gorging 
himself, he emptied the plates and swept all 
the remains from before the places of the other 
chiefs into the capacious folds of his robe. 
This he rebelted at the waist, so that it formed 
a very good temporary haversack. With an 
air signifying to " the victor belong the spoils/' 
he swept majestically out of the house. 

The answer came next day from the Secre- 
tary of War that the Department of the Inte- 
rior, which had the Indians in charge, refused 
to allow any army supplies to be distributed. 
They gave as a reason that it would involve 
complexities in their relations with other de- 
partments. It was a very difficult thing for 
the General to explain to the Indians. They 
knew that both army and Indians were fed 
from the same source, and they could not com- 
prehend what difference it could make when 
a question of starvation was pending. They 
could not be told, what we all knew, that had 
the War Department made good the deficien- 
cies it would have reflected discredit on the 
management of the Department of the Interior. 



Life on the Reservation 167 

The chiefs were compelled to return to their 
reservations, where long ago all the game had 
been shot, and their famishing tribe were many 
of them driven to join the hostiles. We were 
not surprised that the warriors were discour- 
aged and desperate, and that the depredations 
of Sitting Bull on the settlements increased 
with the new accessions to his numbers. 



CHAPTER XIX 

LIFE ON THE RESERVATION 

The day of the final breaking up of the ice 
in the Missouri was one of great excitement to 
us. The roar and crash of the ice-fields could 
be heard a great distance. The sound of the 
tremendous report was the signal for the whole 
garrison to go out on the hill near the infantry 
post and watch the grand sight. Just above 
us was a bend in the river, and around this 
curve great floes of ice rushed, heaping up in 
huge masses as they swept down the furious 
current. All the lowlands that lay between 
Bismarck and the river were inundated, and 
the shore far in covered with blocks of ice. 
Just across the river from us was a wretched 



1 68 The Boy General 



little collection of huts, occupied by outlaws, 
into which the soldiers were decoyed to drink 
and gamble. The law forbidding liquor to be 
sold on the reservation was so strict that 
whiskey venders did not dare set foot on the 
Government land. The reservation was too 
large to permit them to place themselves on 
its other boundaries ; they would have been at 
such a distance from the post that it would 
not have been worth while. Just on the wa- 
ter's edge opposite, these human fiends had 
perched to watch and entice the enlisted men. 

These shanties were placed on a little rise of 
ground, with a precautionary thought of the 
usual spring floods. The day of the first ice- 
breaking we saw the water rise to such a height 
that cabin after cabin was abandoned. The oc- 
cupants dragged their property to a little higher 
rise where one or two, more cautious than the 
rest, had built. On this narrow neck of land 
huddled together the whole of the group, in des- 
perate peril. No one on our side of the river 
could help them, for the water was the maddest 
of whirlpools, while on the other side the over- 
flow had made a great lake, cutting them off 
from Bismarck. As we watched them scram- 
bling on the little knoll, like drowning men 
clinging to the upturned keel of a boat, we 



Life on the Reservation 169 



suffered real distress at our powerlessness to 
help them. At last one of them stepped into 
the only small boat they had been able to re- 
tain, and standing bravely at the side of the 
one man at the bow, both were swept down 
the river out of sight among the gorge of ice- 
blocks and never again heard from. It was 
too exhausting watching these imperilled be- 
ings, knowing how incapable we were of help- 
ing them, and we went back to our quarters to 
spend hours of suspense. We could not set 
ourselves about doing anything while the lives 
of human beings so near us were in jeopardy. 
As day began to close, word came that the 
water was subsiding ; not, alas, until some of 
them had been borne to their last home. 
Those that were left waded back to their huts, 
and, unheeding the warning of that fearful day, 
began again their same miserable existence. 

Of all our happy days, the happiest pres- 
ently came to us at Fort Lincoln. Life grew 
more enjoyable every day as we realized the 
blessings of our home. I have seen my hus- 
band, with all the abandon of a boy, throw 
himself on a rug in front of the fire and enumer- 
ate his blessings with real gratitude. Speak- 
ing of his regiment first, his district (for he 
then had five posts under his command), the 



170 The Boy General 



hunting, his dogs and horses, and his own 
room, which was an unceasing delight, he 
used to declare to me that he would not ex- 
change places with any one — not even a friend 
in civil life who stood at the head of his pro- 
fession as a journalist, who had wealth and 
youth, and who lived in almost princely lux- 
ury. 

When spring came again, it is impossible to 
express the joy I felt that there was to be no 
summer campaign ; and for the first time in 
many years I saw the grass grow without a 
shudder. The General began the improve- 
ment of the post with fresh energy, and from 
the drill-ground came the click of the horses' 
hoofs and the note of the bugles repeating the 
commands of the officers. As soon as it was 
warm enough, several charming girls came out 
from the States to our garrison to visit us. 
They gave every one pleasure, and effectually 
turned the heads of the young officers. 

Almost our only exercise on summer even- 
ings was walking on the outskirts of the gar- 
rison surrounded by the dogs. It was danger- 
ous to go far, but we could walk with safety 
in the direction of the huts of the Indian 
scouts. Their life always interested us, and 
by degrees they became so accustomed to our 



Life on the Reservation 



171 



presence that they went on with all their oc- 
cupations without heeding us. 

There was a variety of articles among the 
litter tossed down in front of these Indian 
quarters ; lariats, saddles, and worn-out robes 
were heaped about an arrangement for con- 
veying their property from place to place. 
The construction was simple, and rendered 
wheels unnecessary. About midway on two 
long saplings, placed a short distance apart, 
is a foundation of leather thongs. Upon 
this the effects belonging to an Indian family 
are lashed. Two pole -ends are attached to 
either side of a rude harness on the pony, 
while the other two drag on the ground. In 
following an Indian trail, the indentation made 
by the poles, as they are pulled over the 
ground, traces the course of travel unmistak- 
ably. 

Some of their boats lay upturned about the 
door. They were perfectly round, like a great 
bowl, and composed of a wicker frame over 
which buffalo hide was tightly drawn. The 
primitive shape and construction dates back to 
the ancient Egyptians, and these boats were 
called coracles in olden times. They seemed 
barely large enough to hold two Indians, who 
were obliged to crouch down as they paddled 



172 The Boy General 



their way with short, awkward oars through 
the rapid current of the Missouri. 

One of the scouts, Bloody Knife, was nat- 
urally mournful ; his face still looked sad when 
he put on the presents given him. He was a 
perfect child about gifts, and the General 
studied to bring him something from the East 
that no other Indian had. 

He had proved himself such an invaluable 
scout to the General that they often had long 
interviews. Seated on the grass, the dogs ly- 
ing about them, they talked over portions of 
the country that the General had never seen, 
the scout drawing excellent maps in the sand 
with a pointed stick. He was sometimes pet- 
ulant, often moody, and it required the utmost 
patience on my husband's part to submit to his 
humors; but his fidelity and cleverness made 
it worth while to yield to his tempers. 

I was always interested in the one pretty 
squaw among them, Medicine Mother. Her 
husband was young and she was devoted to 
him. I have seen him lounging on the floor 
of the hut while she made his toilet, combing 
and plaiting his hair, cutting and oiling the 
bangs which were trimmed to cover his fore- 
head, and plucking the few scattered hairs 
from his chin — for they do not consider it an 



Life on the Reservation 173 

honor to have a suspicion of a beard. She 
strapped on his leggings, buckled his belt, and 
finally lighted his pipe. Once the war-bonnet 
of her lord had to be rearranged. He deigned 
to put it on her head, readjusted the eagle- 
feathers, and then gave it to her to fasten 
them in securely. The faithful slave even used 
to accompany him to his bath. Indians do 
bathe — at long intervals; I have seen him, 
at a distance, running along the river-bank on 
his return, his wife waving a blanket behind 
him to keep off the mosquitoes ! 

If the Indians kill any game, they return 
home, order the squaws to take the ponies and 
bring back what they have killed, and then 
throw themselves down to sleep among the 
sprawling Indian babies, tailless dogs, and gen- 
eral filth. The squaws do all the labor, and 
every skin is tanned by their busy fingers. I 
never knew more than one Indian who worked. 
He was an object of interest to me, though he 
kept himself within the gloom of the cabin, and 
skulked around the fire when he cooked. This 
was the occupation forced upon him by the 
others. He had lacked the courage to endure 
the torture of the sun-dance ; for when strips 
of flexible wood had been drawn through the 
gashes in his back, and he was hung up by 



174 The Boy General 



these, the poor creature had fainted. On re- 
viving he begged to be cut down, and ever 
after was an object of scorn. He was con- 
demned to wear squaw's clothing from that 
time on. They mocked and taunted him, and 
he led as separate an existence as if he were 
in a desert alone. The squaws disdained to 
notice him, except to heap work upon his al- 
ready burdened shoulders. 

Once my husband and I, in walking, came 
suddenly upon a queer little mound, that we 
concluded we would observe at a distance. 
An Indian was seen carrying buckets and 
creeping with difficulty into the small door. 
It was about six feet in diameter, and proved 
to be a kind of steam-bath, which they consider 
great medicine. A hole is first dug in the 
ground and filled with stones ; a fire is kindled 
upon them long before, and they are heated 
red hot. The round framework of saplings 
over these is covered with layer upon layer of 
blankets and robes, so that no air can pen- 
etrate. The Indians, almost stripped of their 
clothing, crouch round them, while the one 
acting as servant brings water to pour on the 
heated rocks. The steam has no escape, and 
the Indians are thoroughly roasted. While we 
were looking at this curious bath-house a small 



Life on the Reservation 175 

Indian boy crept out from under the edges of 
the blankets, and ashamed to have given in 
before the rest, drew his almost parboiled little 
body into a hiding-place. 

We went one day into a tepee that was 
placed by itself to see an Indian who was only 
slightly ill. His father and friends were talk- 
ing to him of his death as a certainty, and 
making all the plans in advance. They even 
took his measure for a coffin, assuring him that 
they would honor him by putting him in a box 
in imitation of the white man. 

The Indians all seemed a melancholy people. 
They sometimes ask embarrassing questions. 
Once they inquired of the General if our young 
lady guest was his other wife. The blush of 
the girl so amused us that our laugh rang out 
among them, and seemed to be a sound they 
knew nothing of. They sat on the ground for 
hours, gambling for iron, brass, and silver 
rings, but always glum and taciturn. The tall- 
est Indian of them all, Long Soldier, grew to 
be very cunning when he learned what a cu- 
riosity he was. He would crouch down at 
our approach, and only at the sight of a coin 
as a " tip " would he draw up his seven feet of 
height. 

As the soldiers and citizens all knew the Gen- 



176 The Boy General 



eral's love of pets, we had constant presents. 
Many of them I would have gladly declined, 
but notwithstanding a badger, a porcupine, a 
raccoon, a prairie-dog, and a wild turkey, all 
served their brief time as members of our family. 
They were comparatively harmless, but a wild- 
cat was sent to us which the General shipped to 
the States, as a present to one of the zoological 
gardens ; in its way it was a treasure. While 
it remained with us it was kept in the cellar. 
Mary used to make many retreats, tumbling 
up the stairs, when the cat flew at her the 
length of its chain. She was startled so often 
that at last she joined with me in requesting 
its removal as soon as convenient. The Gen- 
eral regretted giving it up, but Keevan was 
called to chloroform and box it for the jour- 
ney. Lieutenant Tom printed on the slats of 
the cover something like " Do not fondle." It 
was superfluous, for no one could approach 
the box, after the effects of the chloroform 
had passed away, without encountering the 
fiery-red eyes, and such scratchings and spit- 
tings and mad plunges as suggested keeping 
one's distance. Some detention kept the 
freight-train at a station over Sunday ; the box 
with the wild-cat was put in the baggage-room. 
The violence of the animal as it leaped and 



Leave of Absence 



177 



tore at the cover loosened the slats, and it es- 
caped into the room. The freight agent spent 
a wretched day. Chloroform was again resort- 
ed to, and it was deemed a good riddance 
when the animal was sent off. 

At one time the General tamed a tiny field- 
mouse, and kept it in a large, empty ink-stand 
on his desk. It grew very fond of him, and 
ran over his head and shoulders, and even 
through his hair. The General, thinking at 
last that it was cruel to detain the little thing 
in-doors when it belonged by nature to the 
fields, took it out and left it on the plain. The 
kindness was of no use ; like the oft-quoted 
prisoner of the Bastile, it was back again at 
the steps in no time, and preferred captivity to 
freedom. 



CHAPTER XX 

LEAVE OF ABSENCE 

In the autumn of 1875 we went into the 
States, and spent most of the winter delight- 
fully in New York. We went out a great deal. 
Of course we were compelled to dress very 
plainly, and my husband made great sport of 
his only citizen overcoat— an ulster. He de- 



178 The Boy General 



clared that it belonged so to the past that he 
was the only man besides the car-drivers that 
wore one. It did not disturb him in the least ; 
neither did going in the horse-cars to recep- 
tions and dinners. He used laughingly to say, 
" Our coachman wears our livery, Libbie," 
when the car-driver had on an army overcoat. 
No one so perfectly independent as he was 
could fail to enjoy everything. 

Every one seemed to vie with every one else 
in showing appreciation of my husband during 
that winter. He dined often with men who 
learned to draw him out in talk of his Plains 
life. While in the midst of some story, the 
butler would pass him a dish that he espe- 
cially liked. The host at once directed the man 
to pass on, and told my husband that he could 
not spare time for him to eat while they were 
impatient for the rest of the tale. After going 
hungry once or twice, the General learned to 
dine with me before he left the hotel, so that he 
might be free to give himself up to others. 

He repeated a story to me about Ole Bull, 
who was asked to dinner and requested to bring 
his violin. He accepted for himself, but sent 
word that his violin did not dine. My husband 
made a personal application of the story, and 
threatened, playfully, to send word that his Ind- 



Leave of Absence 



179 



ian stories did not dine. At the Century Club 
he received from distinguished men the most 
cordial congratulations on his essay into the 
literary field. They urged him to continue the 
work. Some of the authors he met there were 
twice his age, and he received each word they 
said with deep gratitude. My husband knew 
how I valued every expression of appreciation 
of him, and he used to awaken me, when he 
returned, to tell me what was said. He never 
failed to preface every such reluctant repetition 
by exacting promises of secrecy. He feared 
that in my wifely pride I might repeat what he 
told me, and it would look like conceit on his 
part. In February we had to say good-by to 
New York life. Our friends asked us why we 
went so soon. In army life it is perfectly nat- 
ural to speak of one's financial condition, and it 
did not occur to us that civilians do not do the 
same. I do not wonder now that they opened 
their eyes with well-bred astonishment when 
we said we were obliged to go because we had 
used all the money we had saved for leave of 
absence. 

When we reached St. Paul the prospect be- 
fore us was dismal, as the trains were not to be- 
gin running until April. The railroad officials, 
mindful of what the General had done for them 



180 The Boy General 



in protecting their advance workers in the build- 
ing of the road, came and offered to open the 
route. Sending us through on a special train 
was a great undertaking, and we had to wait 
some time for the preparations to be completed. 
One of the officers of the road took an engine 
out some distance to investigate, and it looked 
discouraging enough when he sprang down 
from the cab on his return in a complete coat- 
ing of ice. 

The train on which we finally started was an 
immense one, and certainly a curiosity. There 
were two snow-ploughs and three enormous en- 
gines ; freight-cars with coal supplies and bag- 
gage ; several cattle-cars, with stock belonging 
to the Black Hills miners who filled the passen- 
ger-coaches. There was an eating-house, loom- 
ing up above everything, built on a flat car. In 
this car the forty employees of the road, who 
were taken to shovel snow, etc., were fed. There 
were several day-coaches, with army recruits 
and a few passengers, and last of all the pay- 
master's car, which my husband and I occupied. 
This had a kitchen and a sitting-room. At first 
everything went smoothly. The cook on our 
car gave us excellent things to eat, and we slept 
soundly. It was intensely cold, but the little 
stove in the sitting-room was kept filled con- 



Leave of Absence 181 



stantly. Sometimes we came to drifts, and the 
train would stop with a violent jerk, start again, 
and once more come to a stand-still, with such 
force that the dishes would fall from the table. 
The train-men were ordered out, and after en- 
ergetic work the track was again clear and we 
went on. One day the engines whistled, and 
we were shooting on finely when the speed was 
checked so suddenly that the little stove fairly 
danced, and our belongings flew through the 
car from end to end. After this there was an 
exodus from the cars ; every one went to in- 
quire as to the ominous stop. Before our train 
there seemed to be a wall of ice ; we had come 
to a gully which was almost filled with drifts. 
The cars were all backed down some distance 
and detached ; the snow-ploughs and engines 
having thus full sweep, all the steam possible 
was put on, and they began what they called 
" bucking the drifts." This did a little good 
at first, and we made some progress through 
the gully. After one tremendous dash, how- 
ever, the ploughs and one engine were so deep- 
ly embedded that they could not be withdrawn. 
The employees dug and shovelled until they 
were exhausted. The Black Hills miners re- 
lieved them as long as they could endure it; 
then the officers and recruits worked until they 



182 The Boy General 



could do no more. The impenetrable bank of 
snow was the accumulation of the whole winter, 
first snowing, then freezing, until there were 
successive layers of ice and snow. 

Night was descending, and my husband, after 
restlessly going in and out to the next car, 
showed me that he had some perplexity on his 
mind. He described to me the discomfort of 
the officers and Bismarck citizens in the other 
coach in not having any place to sleep. His 
meaning penetrated at last, and I said, " You 
are waiting for me to invite them all to room 
with us ? " His " exactly " assured me it was 
what he intended me to do. So he hurried out 
to give them my compliments and the invitation. 
The officers are generally prepared for emer- 
gencies, and they brought in their blankets ; the 
citizens left themselves to the General's plan- 
ning. In order to make the car-blankets go 
further, he made two of the folding-beds into 
one broad one. Two little berths on each side, 
and rolls of bedding on the floor, left only room 
for the stove, always heated to the last degree. 
I was invited to take the place nearest the wall, 
in the large bed ; then came my husband. After 
that I burrowed my head in my pillow, and the 
servant blew out some of the candles and 
brought in our guests. It is unnecessary for 



Leave of Absence 



me to say that I did not see the order in which 
they appeared. The audible sleeping in our 
bed, however, through the long nights that fol- 
lowed, convinced me that the General had as- 
signed those places to the oldest and fattest. 
Every morning I awoke to find the room empty 
and all the beds folded away. The General 
brought me a tin basin with ice-water, and 
helped me to make a quick toilet ; our eleven 
visitors waited in the other coach, to return to 
breakfast with us in the same room. Every one 
made the best of the situation, and my husband 
was as rollicking as ever. Though I tried to 
conceal it, I soon lost heart entirely. 

The days seemed to stretch on endlessly ; 
the snow was heaped up about us and falling 
steadily. All we could see was the trackless 
waste of white on every side. The wind 
whistled and moaned around the cars, and 
great gusts rocked our frail little refuge from 
side to side. The snow that had begun to fall 
with a few scattered flakes, now came down 
more thickly. I made the best effort I could 
to be brave, and deceive them as to my ter- 
rors — I had no other idea than that we must 
die there. We tried to be merry at our meals, 
and made light of the small supply. The in- 
crease at the table quickly diminished our 



184 The Boy General 



stores, and I knew by the careful manner in 
which the wood was husbanded that it was 
nearly gone. The General, always cool and 
never daunted by anything, was even more 
blithe, to keep me from alarm. During those 
anxious days it used to seem strange to hear a 
dinner-bell through the air, muffled with snow. 
For an instant I was deluded into the thought 
that by some strange necromancy we had been 
spirited on to a station, and that this was the 
clang of the eating-house bell. It was only the 
call from the car where the employees were 
fed. The lowing of the cattle and howling of 
our dogs in the forward cars were the only 
other sounds we heard. Finally the situation 
became desperate, and with all their efforts 
the officers could no longer conceal from me 
their concern for our safety. 

Search was made throughout all the train to 
find if there was a man who understood any- 
thing about telegraphy, for among the fittings 
stowed away in the car a tiny battery had 
been found, with a pocket-relay. A man was 
finally discovered who knew something of 
operating, and it was decided to cut the main 
wire. Then the wires of the pocket -relay 
were carried out of our car and fastened to 
either end of the cut wire outside, so making 



Leave of Absence 



185 



an unbroken circuit between us and our Lin- 
coln friends, besides uniting us with Fargo 
station. In a little while the General had an 
answer from Lieutenant Tom : " Shall I come 
out for you ? " 

After that we kept the wires busy, devising 
plans for our relief. Our headlong brother 
went to Bismarck, and looked up the best 
stage-driver in all the territory, and hired him. 
This driver was cool, intrepid, and inured to 
every peril. At an old stage-station along the 
route he found relays of mules that belonged 
to the mail-sleigh. 

At last a great whoop and yell, such as was 
peculiar to the Custers, was answered by the 
General, and made me aware for the first time 
that brother Tom was outside. I scolded him 
for coming before I thanked him, but he made 
light of the danger and hurried us to get ready, 
fearing a coming blizzard. His arms were full 
of wraps, and his pockets crowded with muf- 
flers the ladies had sent out to me. We did 
ourselves up in everything we had, while the 
three hounds were being placed in the sleigh. 
The drifts were too deep to drive near the 
cars, so my husband carried me over the snow 
and deposited me in the straw with the dogs. 
They were such strangers they growled at be- 



1 86 The Boy General 



ing crowded. Then the two brothers followed, 
and thus packed in we began that terrible ride, 
amid the cheers of those we were leaving. It 
was understood that we were to send back 
help to those we left. 

The suspense and alarm in the car had been 
great, but that journey through the drifts was 
simply terrible. I tried to be courageous, but 
every time we plunged into what appeared to 
be a bottomless white abyss, I believed that 
we were to be buried there. And so we should 
have been, I firmly believe, had it not been for 
the tenacity shown by the old driver. He had a 
peculiar yell that he reserved for supreme mo- 
ments and that always incited the floundering 
mules to new efforts. The sleigh was cov- 
ered, but I could look out in front and see the 
plucky creatures scrambling up a bank after 
they had extricated us from the great drift at 
the bottom of the gully. If there had been a 
tree to guide us, or had there been daylight, the 
journey would not have seemed so hopeless. 
The moon was waning, and the clouds ob- 
scured it entirely from time to time. There 
was nothing to serve as guide-posts except the 
telegraph-poles. Sometimes we had to leave 
them to find a road where the sleigh could 
be pulled through, and I believed we never 



Leave of Absence 



187 



should reach them again. Divide after divide 
stretched before us, like the illimitable waves 
of a great white sea. The snow never ceased 
falling, and I knew too much of the Dakota 
blizzard not to fear hourly that it would settle 
into that driving, blinding, whirling atmos- 
phere through which no eyes can penetrate 
and no foot make progress. It is fortunate that 
such hours of suspense come to an end before 
one is driven distracted. 

When at last I saw the light shining out of 
our door at Fort Lincoln, I could not speak for 
joy and gratitude. Our friends gathered about 
us around the great log-fire in the General's 
room. No light ever seemed so bright, no 
haven so blessed, as our own fireside. The 
train remained in the spot where we had left 
it until the sun of the next spring melted down 
the great ice-banks and set free the buried en- 
gines. All the help that Bismarck could give 
was sent out at once, and even the few cattle 
that survived were at last driven over that 
long distance, and shelter found for them in 
the town. 

Hardly had we arrived before a despatch 
came recalling the General to Washington. I 
had no thought but that I should be allowed 
to accompany him, and went at once to repack 



1 88 The Boy General 



my things. My husband found me thus em- 
ployed, and took my breath away by telling 
me he could not endure the anxiety of having 
me go through such peril again. 

Not the shadow of an anxiety, nor the faint- 
est sign of dread of the coming journey over 
the snow again, came into his face. He left 
me with the same words with which he always 
comforted me : " Be sure, Libbie, it's all for 
the best ; you know we always find it so in the 
end." With these farewell words he stepped 
into the sleigh — which he knew well might be 
his tomb. 

It is not possible for me to speak in detail of 
the days that followed. Life seemed insup- 
portable until I received a despatch saying 
that my husband had again passed safely 
over that two hundred and fifty miles of coun- 
try where every hour life is in jeopardy. 



CHAPTER XXI 
OUR life's last chapter 

Our women's hearts fell when the fiat went 
forth that there was to be a summer campaign, 
and, probably, actual fighting with Indians. 



Our Lifes Last Chapter 189 

Sitting Bull refused to make a treaty with 
the Government, and would not come in tp live 
on a reservation. Besides his constant attacks 
on the white settlers, driving back even the 
most adventurous, he was incessantly invading 
and stealing from the land assigned to the 
peaceable Crows. They appealed for help to 
the government that had promised to shield 
them. 

The preparations for the expedition were 
completed before my husband returned from 
the East. The troops had been sent out of bar- 
racks into a camp that was established a short 
distance down the valley. As soon as the Gen- 
eral returned we left Fort Lincoln and went 
into camp. 

The morning for the start came only too 
soon. My husband was to take Sister Mar- 
garet and me out for the first day's march, so I 
rode beside him cut of camp. The column 
that followed seemed unending. The grass 
was not then suitable for grazing, and as the 
route of travel was through a barren country, 
immense quantities of forage had to be trans- 
ported. The line of wagons seemed to stretch 
out interminably. There were pack-mules, the 
ponies already laden, and cavalry, artillery P and 
infantry followed, the cavalry being in advance 



190 The Boy General 



of all. The number of men, citizens, employees, 
Indian scouts, and soldiers was about twelve 
hundred. There were nearly seventeen hun- 
dred animals in all. 

As we rode at the head of the column, we 
were the first to enter the confines of the gar- 
rison. About the Indian quarters, which we 
were obliged to pass, stood the squaws, the old 
men, and the children singing, or rather moan- 
ing, a minor tune that has been uttered on the 
going out of Indian warriors since time im- 
memorial. Some of the squaws crouched on 
the ground, too burdened with their trouble to 
hold up their heads ; others restrained che rest- 
less children who sought to follow their fathers. 

The Indian scouts themselves beat their 
drums and kept up their peculiar monotonous 
tune, which is weird and melancholy beyond 
description. Their war-song is misnamed when 
called music. It is more of a dirge than an in- 
spiration. This intoning they kept up for miles 
along the road. After we had passed the Ind- 
ian quarters we came near Laundress Row. 
The wives and children of the soldiers lined 
the road. Mothers, with streaming eyes, held 
their little ones out at arm's-length for one last 
look at the departing father. The toddlers 
among the children had made a mimic column 



Our Lifes Last Chapter 191 

of their own. With their handkerchiefs tied to 
sticks in lieu of flags, and beating old tin pans 
for drums, they strode lustily back and forth 
in imitation of the advancing soldiers. They 
were too young to realize why the mothers 
wailed out their farewells. 

It was a relief to escape from them and en- 
ter the garrison, and yet, when our band struck 
up " The Girl I Left Behind Me," the most de- 
spairing hour seemed to have come. All the 
sad-faced wives of the officers who had forced 
themselves to their doors to try and wave a 
courageous farewell, and smile bravely to keep 
the ones they loved from knowing the anguish 
of their breaking hearts, gave up the struggle 
at the sound of the music. 

From the hour of breaking camp, before the 
sun was up, a mist had enveloped everything. 
Soon the bright sun began to penetrate this 
veil and dispel the haze, and a scene of wonder 
and beauty appeared. The cavalry and in- 
fantry in the order named, the scouts, pack- 
mules, and artillery, and behind all the long 
line of white-covered wagons, made a column 
altogether some two miles in length. As the 
sun broke through the mist, a mirage appeared, 
which took up about half of the line of cavalry, 
and thenceforth for a little distance it marched, 



192 The Boy General 



equally plain to the sight, on the earth and in 
the sky. The future of the heroic band, whose 
days were even then numbered, seemed to be re- 
vealed, and already there seemed a premonition 
in the supernatural translation as their forms 
were reflected from the opaque mist of the 
early dawn. 

At every bend of the road, as the column 
wound its way round and round the low hills, 
my husband glanced back to admire his men, 
and could not refrain from constantly calling 
my attention to their grand appearance. The 
soldiers, inured to many years of hardship, 
were the perfection of physical manhood. 
Their brawny limbs and lithe, well-poised bodies 
gave proof of the training their out-door life 
had given. Their resolute faces, brave and con- 
fident, inspired one with a feeling that they 
were going out aware of the momentous hours 
awaiting them, but inwardly assured of their 
capability to meet them. 

The General could scarcely restrain his re- 
curring joy at being again with his regiment, 
from which he had feared he might be sepa- 
rated by being detained on other duty. His 
buoyant spirits at the prospect of the activity 
and field-life that he so loved made him like a 
boy. He had made every plan to have me join 



Our Lifes Last Chapter 193 

him later when they should have reached the 
Yellowstone. The steamers with supplies 
would be obliged to leave our post and follow 
the Missouri and Yellowstone to the point 
where the regiment was to make its first halt 
to renew the rations and forage ; and so he was 
sanguine that but a few weeks would elapse be- 
fore we should be reunited. 

As usual we rode a little in advance and se- 
lected camp, and watched the approach of the 
regiment with real pride. There was a unity 
of movement about it that made the column 
at a distance seem like a broad dark ribbon 
stretched smoothly over the plains. 

We made our camp the first night on a small 
river a few miles beyond the post. There the 
paymaster made his disbursements, in order 
that the debts of the soldiers might be liquidat- 
ed with the sutler. In the morning the fare- 
well was said, and the paymaster took sister and 
me back to the post. With my husband's de- 
parture my last happy days in garrison were 
ended. A premonition of disaster that I had 
never known before weighed me down. I could 
not shake off the baleful influence of depress- 
ing thoughts. 

We heard constantly at the fort of the disaf- 
fection of the young Indians of the Reservation, 



194 The Boy General 



and of their joining the hostiles. We knew, for 
we had seen for ourselves, how admirably they 
were equipped. We even saw on a steamer 
touching at our landing its freight of Spring- 
field rifles piled up on the decks on their way to 
the Indians up the river. There was unquestion- 
able proof that they came into the trading-posts 
far above us and bought them, while our own 
brave Seventh Cavalry troopers were sent out 
with only the short-range carbines that grew 
foul after the second firing. 

While we waited in untold suspense for some 
hopeful news, the garrison was suddenly thrown 
into a state of excitement by important de- 
spatches that were sent from Division Head- 
quarters in the East. We women knew that 
eventful news had come, and could hardly re- 
strain our curiosity, for it was of vital import 
to us. Indian scouts were fitted out at the fort 
with the greatest despatch, and had instruc- 
tions to make the utmost speed they could in 
reaching the expedition on the Yellowstone. 
After their departure, when there was no longer 
any need for secrecy, we were told that the ex- 
pedition which had started from the Depart- 
ment of the Platte, and encountered the hostile 
Indians on the head-waters of the Rosebud, had 
been compelled to retreat. 



Our Lifes Last Chapter 195 

All those victorious Indians had gone to join 
Sitting Bull, and it was to warn our regiment 
that this news was sent to our post, which was at 
the extreme of telegraphic communication in 
the Northwest, and the orders given to transmit 
the information, that precautions might be taken 
against encountering so large a number of the 
enemy. The news of the failure of the cam- 
paign in the other department was a death-knell 
to our hopes. We felt that we had nothing to 
expect but that our troops would be over- 
whelmed with numbers, for it seemed to us an 
impossibility, as it really proved to be, that our 
Indian scouts should cross that vast extent of 
country in time to make the warning of use. 

The first steamer that returned from the 
Yellowstone brought letters from my husband, 
with the permission, for which I had longed 
unutterably, to join him by the next boat. The 
Indians had fired into the steamer when it had 
passed under the high bluffs in the gorges of 
the river. I counted the hours until the sec- 
ond steamer was ready. They were obliged, 
after loading, to cover the pilot - house and 
other vulnerable portions of the upper deck 
with sheet-iron to repel attacks. Then sand- 
bags were placed around the guards as pro- 
tection, and other precautions taken for the 



196 The Boy General 



safety of those on board. All these delays and 
preparations made me inexpressibly impatient, 
and it seemed as if the time would never come 
for the steamer to depart. 

Meanwhile our own post was constantly sur- 
rounded by hostiles, and the outer pickets 
were continually subjected to attacks. It was 
no unusual sound to hear the long-roll calling 
out the infantry before dawn to defend the 
garrison. We saw the faces of the officers 
blanch, brave as they were, when the savages 
grew so bold as to make a day-time sortie upon 
our outer guards. 

A picture of one day of our life in those 
disconsolate times is fixed indelibly in my 
memory. 

On Sunday afternoon, the 25th of June, 1876, 
our little group of saddened women, borne 
down with one common weight of anxiety, 
sought solace in gathering together in our 
house. We tried to find some slight surcease 
from trouble in the old hymns ; some of them 
dated back to our childhood's days, when 
our mothers rocked us to sleep to their sooth- 
ing strains. All were absorbed in the same 
thoughts, and their eyes were filled with far- 
away visions and longings. Indescribable 
yearning for the absent, and untold terror for 



Our Lifes Last Chapter 197 



their safety, engrossed each heart. The words 
of the hymn, 

" Still all my song shall be, 
Nearer, my God, to Thee," 

came forth with almost a sob from every throat. 
At that very hour the fears that our tortured 
minds had portrayed in imagination, were real- 
ities, and the souls of those we thought upon 
were ascending to meet their Maker. 




INDIAN IN WAR-BONNET. 



198 The Boy General 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN * 

Two days after the Battle of the Little Big 
Horn the sun rose bright and glorious over 
The Boy General as he lay in that long sleep 
from which no mortal wakes. A true leader 
to the last, he lay at the head of his army on 
the summit of a ridge overlooking the battle- 
field, surrounded by his heroic followers. 
Here, with him, were his two brothers, Tom 
Custer and Boston, and his nephew Armstrong 
Reed, Captain Yates, Lieutenants Cooke, Smith, 
and Reilly, all lying in a circle of a few yards, 
their horses beside them. The companies had 
successively thrown themselves across the path 
of the advancing enemy. The last stand had 
been made with Yates's company. Not a man 
escaped to tell the tale, but it was inscribed 
upon the surface of the barren hills in a lan- 
guage more eloquent than words. 

In the ravine below lay the troops arranged 
in order of battle, as they had fought, line be- 

* Edited from a paper prepared by Annie Gibson Yates and 
end revised by Lieutenant- General Nelson A. Miles. 



The Battle of the Little Big Horn 199 

hind line, showing where defensive positions 
had been successively taken up and held till not 
a man was left to continue the fight. In a nar- 
row compass horses and men were piled pro- 
miscuously. Lieutenant Smith's skirmishers, 
still holding their gray horses, were lying in 
groups of fours. Lieutenant Calhoun was on 
the skirmish-line, and Lieutenant Crittendon 
and each of the company had fallen in the 
place to which the tactics would have assigned 
them. 

The true soldier asks no questions ; he 
obeys, and Custer was a true soldier. He gave 
his life in carrying out the orders of his com- 
manding general. He was sent out to fight 
and was expected to accomplish results. He 
had advanced carefully and cautiously upon 
the enemy, taking three times as much time for 
the approach as is regarded necessary in the 
marches of cavalry troops to-day. He often 
took counsel with his officers and halted to ex- 
amine all abandoned camps and trails. He was 
instructed not to let any Indians escape, and was 
expected to compel them to settle down on their 
reservations. He had trained and exhorted his 
men and officers to loyalty, and with one excep- 
tion they stood true to their trust, as was shown 
by the order in which they fell. A lieutenant 



200 The Boy General 



holding an important sheltered position, who 
should have kept the enemy at bay and could 
easily have done so, became excited and panic- 
stricken, gave confused orders and counter- 
manded them, and finally led a stampede which 
allowed the Indians to concentrate on one point 
and advance on Custer's band with overwhelm- 
ing numbers. 

The Government, through its Indian agents, 
had unwittingly provided the savages with bet- 
ter rifles than it had given to its own soldiers. 
These reservation Indians had from time to 
time slipped away from their rightful grounds 
and joined the hostile red men. They should 
have been reported to the War Department by 
the agents employed to look after them. But 
these public servants were only too glad to have 
them gone that they might sell their supplies 
furnished by the Government and keep the 
profits, which amounted to thousands of dollars. 
They even invented fictitious names of Indians 
and kept them on their records to further in- 
crease their gains. Thus were the enemy's 
ranks swollen and no account made of it to the 
War Department. And so it happened that 
Custer went out to meet less than a thousand 
Indians and found himself face to face with 
three thousand, supplied with long-range rifles 



The Battle of the Little Big Horn 201 

with which they could stand at a safe distance 
and take effective aim, while his own men had 
to extract empty and corroded cartridge-shells, 
often with their knives, from their inferior 
short-range rifles. A few days previous to this 
General Crooke had been sent by the command- 
ing general, Terry, to do battle with the Indians 
in another place. He was defeated, and the 
Indians, intoxicated with the victory, had come 
with greater courage against Custer, and this, 
with many other unavoidable circumstances, 
forced the battle before Terry and his men 
could come up and unite with Custer's forced. 
General Terry was new to Indian warfare and 
had to plan the battle as he put it, from " a con- 
jectural map of an unexplored country/' and 
without knowing positively the situation of 
the enemy. So was the brave Seventh Cav- 
alry sent down to the Valley of Death, and the 
Thermopylae of the western plains is on our 
national records. 

When a relief corps was sent to look up Cus- 
ter's trail, the column came to a part of the 
division that had been led by the runaway 
lieutenant. The men were still fighting in the 
timber. They gave cheer upon cheer to the 
soldiers who had come to their relief, and 
the Indians fell back. The relief pushed on to 



202 The Boy General 



find Custer and his men. They passed an 
Indian village which extended three miles 
along the stream. They saw funeral lodges 
containing the bodies of nine chiefs. When 
they came to the Custer field they were ap- 
palled. They set to work to bury the dead. 
There were only two spades, but the soldiers 
used tin plates, cups, and even their hands in 
digging the graves. They were buried exact- 
ly where they had fallen, each grave being 
carefully marked with a stake cut in two, the 
name burned inside, the two pieces wrapped 
with wire and driven out of sight at the head 
of each grave. 

A year later General Sheridan sent his broth- 
er, Colonel Michael Sheridan, from Chicago to 
the Little Big Horn to go with an escort to 
the battle-field and bring the bodies back. He 
took a steamer on the Yellowstone and re- 
turned to Fort Lincoln with the coffins, which 
were placed in a storehouse. Colonel Joseph 
Tilford, of the Seventh Cavalry, locked himself 
in the room and opened Custer's casket and 
cut a lock of hair from his head, in order that 
his wife might have sure proof of his identity. 
No queen ever valued her crown jewels more 
highly. Thus was one ray of sunshine brought 
from the battle-field in the gleam of a golden curl. 



The Battle of the Little Big Horn 203 

Some of these heroes of the Little Big Horn 
were taken to their homes, others to the mil- 
itary cemetery at Fort Leavenworth ; but Gen- 
eral Custer, who had once asked his wife to 
lay him in the spot he loved the best, was bur- 
ied at West Point. A bronze relief of The 
Boy General in battle, forever looks down 
across the hills and river over the most beau- 
tiful scene on all the Hudson. 

Captain Keough's thoroughbred horse, Co- 
manche, was the only living thing found on 
the Custer battle-field. When General Terry's 
relief column arrived, Comanche staggered to 
his feet, having survived twenty-eight wounds. 
He was tenderly cared for, taken to Fort Lin- 
coln, and orders were issued that no one should 
ever ride him again. Comanche always 
marched in the parades of the Seventh Cav- 
alry, caparisoned with the military equipments 
of a cavalry officer, and led by the devoted sol- 
diers who had him in charge. He died in 1893, 
and his funeral was attended with the honors 
of war. He was mounted by a taxidermist and 
is now in the Military Museum at Governor's 
Island. 

A monument of granite in the form of an 
obelisk marks the field where General Custer 
fell. It overlooks the entire country occupied 



204 The Boy General 



by both forces during the action. On the 
west front is the inscription to the officers ; on 
the three other sides is a list of the men who 
fell on that spot as well as those who were 
killed in the fight on the 26th. 

A quarter of a century has elapsed since the 
Battle of the Little Big Horn. At that time 
Sitting Bull, in Dakota, and Crazy Horse, in 
Wyoming, with their allies, Crow King, Gall, 
Low Dog, Humph and Two Moons, kept a 
territory of 90,000 square miles in terror, slay- 
ing without mercy travellers, settlers, wood- 
choppers, and hunters. To-day hundreds of 
thousands of happy people in snug homes on 
well-tilled farms, or in pretty villages, rejoice 
in the peace and prosperity of the same coun- 
try which still has room enough for as many 
Indians as ever lived there. 

As a pioneer the name of George Armstrong 
Custer will live side by side with that of La 
Salle, Captain John Smith, Boone, and Miles 
Standish. And he has won unfading glory as 
a soldier, through his efficient zeal, devoted 
patriotism, and the high courage that counted 
death in loyal service, a victory. 



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